


Idiot's Array

by wingedbears



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Ben Solo and Kylo Are Two Different People, Ben Solo is Deceptive, Kylo Ren and Rey Are Not Related, Kylo is Angry and Sad, Luke Strives to Be Yoda, M/M, Rey is Excited, but they might as well be
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-08-24 05:30:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8359108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingedbears/pseuds/wingedbears
Summary: Kylo is dragged back to the light, but is now stuck on an island with Luke and Rey.  It's going miserably until he runs into himself.  Well, Ben Solo, at least.





	1. Chapter 1

Kylo feels uncomfortable in his Jedi robes, and even in the soft tunic and pants that Luke had handed over when he arrived. Luke showed him to the only other room available in the cottage, and the room was cold and barren except for a bed made up in linen. Kylo couldn’t hiss doors shut this place was so ancient, so he simply sat down on the bed and fumed. 

They had taken away his lightsaber. They had taken him away from the First Order. 

And after the prison cell on the base, they sent him here, a terribly awkward flight with Chewie. Kylo raged against prison walls, and now he raged against himself. The setting was ironically perfect anyway; high cliff walls and storming sea. 

It had been a rough three months since he arrived. It was still rough. Kylo knows that those closest to him forgive him for his actions, but he still remembers every deed he did in vivid detail. Kylo can’t forget. Luke insists that he can’t hold onto the past, but Kylo feels that isn’t penance enough. When he meditates, he does his best to clear his mind, but he can still picture younglings being stricken down by his own hands.

He goes to Luke with these concerns, but Luke does not know the words to say. Sometimes Kylo will tell Rey, if only to get a reaction. She’s always horrified, then angry, so much so she won’t talk to him. But she always comes back, much to Kylo’s dismay, to ask for forgiveness, and offer forgiveness in return. He always obliges, but feels better somehow if Rey is mad. 

So Kylo returns back to his quarters afterward, feeling the weight on him. 

He is in the tiny library, sitting in itchy clothes, because Jedi are not about comfort, or style, even, when he runs across an article on artifacts. It catches his eye because the previous Jedi Master had written about the Darkstaff, and it’s great power. The missive is obviously a warning, and Kylo sits and waits for a moment, wondering if this is one of the times he’s supposed to resist temptation, or even look further, but his search is on possible existing Jedi across the galaxy, and the artifact might be one that Jedi protect, especially if it holds such power. 

_Senator,_

_It is with deep regret that I must inform you that the Jedi have left. We entrust the Eye of the Sun, destroyer of the Darkstaff, in the care of the locals, deep in the heart of the tree. They are our allies._

_We now know what the future holds, ten years on._

_The Sith will not return here again, we have willed it so._

_Master Kybie_

Kylo closes the letter, knowing it’s a dead end. The datapad feels heavy in his hand, but he continues his search. Which is when feels the barrel of a blaster against the back of his skull and hears a strangely familiar voice.

“Don’t move,” the man says. “I need information, and you’re going to give it to me.”

Kylo is of two minds about this. On the one hand he should peacefully obtain the information this man needs, and let time and wisdom sort this out. The other hand wins out- Kylo grabs the blaster with hand and yanks it and the attached arm over his shoulder, essentially flipping the man onto his back in front of Kylo. Kylo still holds onto the blaster and thinks of what his past self would do, and slowly drops it by his side. 

It is the man himself that brings a great shock, however. Because there, groaning on the floor is himself. No scar marring his face, but it’s him, or someone who looks a great deal like Kylo. The man opens his eyes and looks up. 

He gapes, just as Kylo is surely doing and says, “Fuck me.”

Kylo is thrown off, but reaches out a hand to let himself - no - let this man up. Because now Kylo is noticing the signs, aside from the lack of scar, there is a lack of fear, and even more puzzling - the lack of the force.

The man who is him is most assuredly not him because he is not a force user. Not even force sensitive.

“Who are you?” the man asks. Then rolls his eyes. “I mean, you’re obviously me, but how?”

“I don’t know,” Kylo answers, because there is no explanation for this. 

The man’s mouth scrunches up and pulls down for a moment, then he shrugs. He holds out a hand. “Ben Solo,” he says.

“Kylo Ren,” Kylo says, feeling strange as he takes Ben’s hand for a shake. Ben’s face seems wide and expressive compared to his own.

This man’s whole body gives away every thought, and weirdly enough, Kylo’s first thought at this is, “He must be bad at sabacc.”

Ben is not even subtle as he looks at Kylo, searching for something. Finally he reaches for his sleeve and rolls it up, showing the fragile skin of his arm, and there, of course is the birthmark. Brown and indefinably shaped, a splotch of caf split. 

Kylo sighs and rolls up his own sleeve to show the same mark.

“This keeps getting weirder and weirder,” Ben says, staring at the birthmark. Then, “You’re a Jedi?”

Kylo will not place his name among the Jedi, or the Sith, so he tells Ben, “Force user.”

Ben rubs the back of his neck for a bit. “Well, I’d like to get back to my own space and time, if possible,” he says. “And my blaster.” He lunges forward towards Kylo’s hip where the blaster is clipped, but Kylo moves out of reach.

“Forget it,” Kylo says. “Who’s to say you’re not a clone of me.”

“Hey,” Ben says, holding up both hands in placating, and Kylo is pained by the reminder of his dead father. “Would I do that to me?” His arms reach out, a smirk on his face.

“I don’t know you, Ben Solo,” Kylo says, wishing for a brief moment for his mask, blown to smithereens on the Starkiller, if not to hide his face, but for the dramatic intonation it brought through the vocalizer. “But not so long ago, I would have shot you dead already.”

Ben’s eyes widen, his body still.

“You don’t know me either,” Kylo says, driving his point home. 

Ben slowly nods, and lets his arms hang loose at his side. “So what now?”

“I think we have to go see Luke,” Kylo says, resigned to the fate of bringing his other self to light. 

 

“This is…unprecedented,” Luke finally says after staring at the both of them after their explanation.

Kylo’s brow twitches, his mouth pursed. Leave it to Luke to understate everything.

“So no one’s met their other self from an alternate universe before?” Ben asks, the hint of hysteria in his voice showing.

Luke frowns, then tries for levity. “Glowing force ghosts, yes. Alternate dimensions or universes, no.” He smiles gently, but it falls flat as he’s met with two identical unimpressed expressions on different faces. This will take some getting used to.

“Alright,” he sighs, waving them to follow him to the kitchen. “Nothing some tea and talking can’t fix, I’m sure.” 

He can sense the two exchanging looks behind his back, Ben confused; Kylo resigned.

The two sit opposite each other on the bench table, still seeming to want to keep the other in eye sight, or still trying to find the similarities in each other.

Luke sets the pot to boil on the stove, setting up the teapot and cups. He’s in the habit of doing this for Rey and Kylo after a particularly difficult day. That is to say, often. He turns to the table’s occupants, still staring at each other. Kylo looks like he’s swallowed a particularly bitter fruit, while Ben (and it will be hard to call him Ben, for in truth in his own mind Kylo is still Ben) seems to be in perplexed shock. Neither one is talking, so Luke stands watching while the tea is boiling. He’s used to silence. 

Ben is not.

“Where were you born?” he asks Kylo, overly enthusiastic.

Kylo sighs, and Luke senses his frustration rising. The kettle whistles, and Luke is frankly glad for the distraction while Kylo begrudgingly answers him.

The kettle whistles and Luke sets the water into the teapot and watches as the green flower bloom. It is a calming reminder that things are not what they seem, and in distress can become beautiful.

He sets the cups and teapot in front of Kylo and Ben, and sits down before taking turns pouring for everyone, himself last.

“Tell me everything up to an hour ago,” he tells Ben. 

Ben looks into his teacup and says, “I was on a mission for mom, and just jumped to hyperdrive when I showed up here.”

Luke does not ask for clarification, but it is obvious Ben is hiding something. “Hyperdrive courses are just set parameters to the universe. Bending space in a controlled environment if you will.”

Ben nods, Kylo stays silent.

“So I suppose a glitch in the universe at your jump off point could lead you to be here.” Luke turns to Kylo. “And Kylo? What were you doing?”

“Researching Jedi temples,” he says flatly.

Luke is stuck here. It’s clear that neither one is telling the whole truth, and does not want to reveal precisely what they were up to. It might take an hour to research, but an hour to punch in coordinates? On a cruise liner maybe.

“Well, I can hail Leia,” Luke says, pausing to blow on his tea, steam rising around his face, softly fragrant. “But I would recommend Ben that you not go anywhere for the time being until we can get this settled.”

Ben looks distraught, like Kylo once did before he was Kylo, when Luke told him it was time for meditation; free time was over. That was quickly followed by a tantrum then.

Ben simply frowns and crosses his arms. “I don’t have a ship so I guess I’m stuck here,” he said. He looks across the table to Kylo who has been quiet. They seem to exchange a look, Ben oddly still, and Kylo brings his cup to his lips. 

He takes a sip before saying, “There’s not one on this planet, either.” He sounds insufferably smug, and Ben scowls. “You really are stuck here,” Kylo says, slowly recognizing that it’s not going to be as entertaining if the both of them are stuck together.

Luke sighs, and gets up, feeling an ache in his head rising. “I’ll go get the comm,” he says, and walks out, leaving behind Ben and Kylo alone. 

He doubts that either one would kill each other, but he taps Rey’s shoulder as he walks down the cold, stone hall. “There’s someone in the kitchen I’d like you to say hello to,” he says in lieu of an explanation. He likes the little bit of drama in being a wise old Jedi Master. He thinks Yoda would approve. That ancient green being spoke only in riddles until the moment was ripe for a dramatic reveal. He goes to his small quarters and picks up the comm that Rey brought with her the first time, telling him it was from Leia.

Luke opens the line, and punches in the code. He waits for his sister to answer.

 

Rey’s mouth is open in delight and horror when she sees Ben Solo. “What is going on?” she demands of Kylo immediately. 

Kylo sighs, and stops himself short from rolling his eyes. “This is Ben,” Kylo says, waving to the man across the table. Rey slides in next to Kylo to stare at thier guest. “He’s from an alternate dimension, we think.”

Rey eyes the teacup still steaming, and drags it toward her. 

“Hey,” Ben smiles at her, lopsided. Kylo looks at him, disgusted. “What?” he asks.

Kylo looks and sees that Rey is blushing but uncomfortable. 

“She’s like our sister. So don’t,” he says, firm.

Kylo can feel Rey’s eyes on him, and he turns to see her shocked and bright eyed, and Kylo winces, because he had never said that out loud to Rey or Luke, but even though he sought after her to get mad at him, he also depended on her cheeriness however annoying it was to bring him out of his moods. 

Ben looks chastised enough, and he smiles a little flatter, but rolls up his sleeve to show Rey the birthmark on his arm. He looks at Kylo expectantly. 

Kylo shoves up the corresponding sleeve to show Rey. 

“So it’s really you,” she says. “This is you.”

“Hey!” Ben says, affronted. 

“Sorry,” she says quickly. “I’ve never seen an alternate dimension person.”

“Well we’re all in the same boat, lady.”

“Rey,” she corrects, chin up. 

“Rey,” Ben repeats. He turns to Kylo. “So no way off this island?”

“Not unless you can swim for an extraordinary amount of time,” Rey replies. “Even then you’ll find another unpopulated island.” She smiles.

“Great,” Ben grouses. “And the comms?”

Rey holds up a single digit. One. “It corresponds to only one other comm.”

Ben groans and falls in a heap, arms and head on the table. “Really grounded,” he admits.

“I’m sure Leia will have something up her sleeve,” Kylo says, the platitude sounding flat. He thinks it’s what someone else might say. 

Ben lifts his head up from the table to look at Kylo, puzzled. “You call Mom Leia?” he asks. The intonation Kylo thinks is that Ben could never get away with that.

“My familial relations are…complicated,” Kylo replies.

“Starting with the phrase ‘familial relations’,” Ben says, using his fingers to draw quotations in the air. Then, Ben squints. “Is that why you’re called Kylo Ren?” he asks, a sharp stab in the dark.

Kylo draws in a quick breath, and Rey positively scowls at Ben, but looks hesitant to speak up for Kylo. Kylo has no one. 

He licks his lips then says, his throat dry, “That’s a part of it, yes.”

Ben is clearly unsatisfied with the answer, frowning. But he places both hands on the table. “Maybe we should go over our past histories.”

“I’d rather not,” Kylo says, almost too fast. He swallows. If anyone notices, they don’t react, but the side of Ben’s mouth slides down, a half frown, disappointed. Kylo wonders if his face is so emotive. If it’s not just because this is him, a version of him, sitting right here and it’s because Kylo that can’t hide his emotions. 

Once, after a particularly hard practice with Rey, having fallen on his back, Kylo stared up at the sky - a flash of snow in his memory - and she pulled him up. He was frustrated with himself when Rey cocked her head to the side. “Your eyes,” she said, apropos of nothing. 

“What?” Kylo was so wrapped up in his own defeat he didn’t hear her.

“Your eyes give you away,” she said, before nodding and heading back to the cottage. Leaving Kylo alone to wonder what was in his eyes that gave him away. He had thought that day that maybe it was his looking for the next opening to attack that Rey saw, but now he wonders. 

Ben sighs. “So where does that leave us then?”

“At an impasse,” Rey says after a moment. “Would you like to see the island?”

Ben looks like he might decline, but nods. He gets up, swinging one leg then the other around the bench. 

“See you in an hour,” Kylo says.

“Wait, what?” Ben asks, as Rey gets up after slamming down the now cool tea. 

“Don’t forget to show him that one cool rock,” Kylo drawls, and Rey grins at him.

“You can show him, you know,” a clear invitation. 

Kylo looks down at his clasped hands. “I need to meditate,” he says, feeling like it’s an excuse even if it’s the truth. Rey frowns, because she’s smart enough to recognize the patterns of his anger. But she nods, determined. “See you at dinner, then,” she says.

Kylo nods and watches them go out the door.

 

Rey can’t believe that next to her is a version of Kylo Ren. Sometimes she can hardly believe the Kylo back at the cottage, all subdued but angry, and apparently thinks of her as a sister.

Rey can’t help but swell in pride at that. After years of waiting when no one would return, she found family in the unlikeliest of people. 

But beside her was Ben Solo, all easy smiles and carefree movements, but she could sense something there he was hiding, but he seems alright on the whole. His hair is pulled back in a bind, and there is no scar, but she still searches for the bits of Kylo within. It’s too early to say for sure, but she thinks there is a deep connection there, a telling.

She walks up to the cliff side and they stand side by side watching the waves crashing on the side of the cliffs, large and powerful, full of life. Teeming with the force. 

Ben sticks his hands in his pockets and rocks back and forth on his heels. “Peaceful,” he says after awhile. Then, “Does this really take an hour?” 

“It could,” Rey replies. “If you really want to waste time we could go down the steps to the shore.”

He holds a hand up. “I’m good.”

“Come on,” Rey says. “If we turn around now, we’ll make it back to the cottage for dinner.”


	2. Chapter 2

When Rey and Ben return to the cottage, Luke is sitting at the table, and Kylo, looking withdrawn, is with him. Rey wonders if Kylo will come up with something new to scare her off with, but she is determined to keep strong and withstand his efforts to push her away. Like a sister. She wonders if she ever had a real sister, but no memory reveals itself. All those years alone on Jakku, each day marked off in loneliness and determination, but now she had Finn, and Luke. And Kylo, apparently. 

The two men look up at her while she is ruminating, and she smiles. “I showed Ben the cliff side,” she says. 

Luke gently smiles. “Which one?” he asks. 

“Just the closest, past the practice platform.” Rey takes a seat on the bench next to Luke, leaving the only space for Ben next to Kylo. Thinking that this might be a mistake, Rey makes a move to switch, but Ben is already sitting down next to Kylo. 

Kylo eyes him warily, seemingly getting over fresh horrors in his mind he incurred, and probably wondering if Ben would find the seeping cracks of his facade. 

Rey had forgotten how much of a ritual the three of them had before Ben’s appearance. Luke and Rey would gently talk or wait in silence for Kylo to speak. He rarely did after his afternoon meditation. 

Luke speaks up first. “I hailed Leia. She’s never heard of anything like this either, but governmental structures aren’t that wild.” He waits for a moment, clears his throat and continues. “She’s sending over a pilot to check it out; bring in someone with impartial view and a ship we could use.”

Rey’s first thought is Poe, but she’s distracted by the brightening of Ben’s face. 

“A ship?” he says, leaning in.

“One that will take us to a system with a better library to research, maybe the system you were near, see what comes up.”

Ben’s face twitches at this before saying, “Research. Great.”

“Ben I don’t know what your galaxy is like, but ours is going through a tumultuous time. There’s a military organization that has armies we don’t know the numbers to, and several of the opposing but peaceful planets have been destroyed.”

Ben’s eyes widen at Luke’s even words.

“The mastermind behind all this is in hiding, and looking for us, to kill us. Discretion is key. We can’t go showboating you around, as entertaining as that might be,” Luke continues. 

“Sorry,” Ben says. He looks contrite, at least. 

“So we’ll go to a library, one bigger than the one I have here, and find something,” Luke says. The word is final.

“It should take the pilot four cycles for him to reach us.”

“Standard?” Ben asks. 

Luke nods. 

Ben looks resigned. Rey glances over to Kylo, who seems to have tuned out, but she catches the clenching of his jaw, the draw of his brow. Looks like Kylo is even less pleased than Ben.

Dinner, the usual fare of slop, is passed around, and all the members of the table look at each other and try not to mention anything too heavy. 

 

The next four cycles go by in the usual way. Luke, Rey, and Kylo get up before sunrise and after stretching exercises begin the fighting practice. Ben comes along to watch, because puttering around in the cottage sounds beyond boring. 

So Ben watches, and becomes enthralled in the movements of Kylo’s smooth twirls and solid strokes versus Rey’s choppy and thwacking strikes. Luke is watching, silently, waiting for an outcome.

Kylo stops, and holds up his arm, palm facing outward. Rey steps back and nods. They are both sweating, their chests heaving. Kylo turns off his lightsaber and steps forward. “You keep swinging wide. Keep it tight, arms at your sides.”

Rey smirks. “This coming from the twirling wonder,” she says. 

Kylo doesn’t respond to that, and holds a starting stance, waits for Rey, and turns on his lightsaber again.

They continue, for longer than Ben thought would be possible. Luke holds up a hand and calls for them to stop. “We’ll take a break for a cool down, and then Rey and I will do exercises.”

Before Ben can ask what they need more exercise for, Kylo comes over and sits down next to him in the wet grass. Ben’s lower half is definitely soaked, but it looks like he’s not in this boat alone, Kylo’s sweat is falling off him.

“Rey’s not as focused. She has a raw power, but it’s not honed,” Kylo says, as if he’s read Ben’s thoughts. Maybe he can, for all Ben knows.

“And yours is,” Ben says, unsure. He looks at Kylo, who looks, for once, not pale and drawn. He must be having a good moment amongst the maelstrom of bad ones. 

Kylo shrugs. “Not as powerful, but more finessed. It’s hard to say what the force is in terms of self.” 

“Most things are comparative,” Ben says. He thinks of the irony of this statement, sitting right next to what could be him, in another time and place. Is this how he would be? Angry and broken? A husk of a person, but a newborn learning to walk. Kylo is a lot of things that Ben isn’t. And he doesn’t know what to do with that. 

But the days follow the same pattern, and at the dawn of the fourth day, they hear the roar of a ship coming in to land. Ben immediately gets up to see what is happening, and goes outside at a run. Luke and Kylo wait. They look at each other, knowing that whoever Leia sent, would now see Ben, and see a what-could-have-been with Kylo. 

Rey runs out after Ben after a moment of waiting to see if there was going to be anything else they needed. Kylo didn’t necessarily want to go down all the steps just to journey back up them again, but could see Rey doing that.

After a few moments Rey and Ben come rushing back in. 

“I can’t tell who it is, but it’s not a regulation ship,” Rey says.

“All the better for hiding,” Luke says. 

And not but an hour later, Poe Dameron stands in the archway at the top of the island, and is greeted by an awfully familiar face.

 

Ben Solo is dead. Kylo killed him. He knows that Kylo is here, but standing in front of Poe is another man completely, someone he thinks he known in another life. He feels a strange echo of a twinge in his chest, like a memory of something lost pulling at his heart strings, but the note buzzes and there’s no image that rises up. 

“Hi,” the apparition says, holding out a hand. He’s not even looking at Poe, instead searching behind him to make sure the others are following. “Ben Solo.”

Poe feels like his eyes are going to pop out of his sockets. The journey up the cliff was pretty extraneous. Is something wrong with his head? Is this an illusion?

“Poe Dameron,” he says, taking the offered hand, and Ben stops. He raises an eyebrow, and seems to take a closer look at Poe.

“You don’t have a beard,” he seems to say finally. “Okay, this is weird.”

“I shave?” Poe says, wondering what this is about, and the hallucination theory is coming more like an actuality, but then Rey and Luke come up, Kylo following behind. 

“Poe!” Rey says, and comes up to him, but stops short. “I’m a friend of Finn’s,” she says.

“Finn! Of course, you’re Rey.” Rey nods, a smile bright on her face.

And next to her is the legend of the galaxy, Luke Skywalker. “Poe Dameron,” Poe says, stepping forward and offering his hand to him.

Luke nods and shakes his hand. 

Kylo is behind him, and says nothing. The scar across his face burns bright, and he looks ashen. Good, Poe thinks nastily. But is somewhat ashamed. This man who had tortured him, and killed his own father, killed so many people, and he comes back. But the General treated him like a prodigal son. She welcomed him, admonished him, and Poe kind of never wants to have kids if it makes him that biased against the world for one person. He can barely imagine what that must be like.

“Hi,” he says to Kylo. Unsure of what could happen. What would Kylo do, or even say to him?

“Hello,” is what Kylo ends up saying. He looks repentant enough, but what does Poe really know? What’s his endgame? And more pressing, why is there another him right here?

“I’m from another dimension,” Ben says, seemingly reading Poe’s mind. He shows a wave with his hand, like that would explain everything.

“Uh,” Poe says.

“And you’re going to fly us back to there,” Luke says, trying to clarify.

“Look, I may be the best pilot of the Resistance, but to another dimension? I’m no physicist, but…” There’s a pause.

And a huff of amusement comes from Kylo. Poe blinks and looks at Kylo again. Okay. Maybe there’s something else there.

Kylo bends his head down to avoid eye contact. Poe realizes he’s taking turns staring at all these people. “So what’s the flight path then?” he asks, ready to get the group on track.

“The Cularin system,” Ben says. Luke and Rey exchange weird glances at this. Kylo looks distracted. Okay. Cularin system it is then.

Well, it’s a start. 

 

They gather in the cottage, and it’s overly cramped when a house meant for one or two now has five. Rey looks the most excited, but Kylo is wary. Poe Dameron. The last time they saw each other it wasn’t in the best time in Kylo’s life. It wasn’t the best time in Poe’s either, and Kylo had made sure of that. Kylo knows that he had to pay penance in one way or another, and asking for forgiveness is a start. Even if the answer was no. And Poe had every right to say no.

Kylo shoves the apology to the back of his mind, however, when he sees that Ben is acting extremely strange. Well, more than usual. He’s stiff, and all the looseness in his body has seized up in this act of trying to maintain a cool front. The only real change is Poe. And Poe keeps side glancing between the two of them, looking like he doesn’t know where to start. Kylo doesn’t either. 

Luke is talking about the plan, and Kylo should be tuning in, but all he can see is Ben fidgeting, and Poe looking more and more confused. It must pain him, Kylo thinks. But that would mean Poe felt something for him once upon a time. It would mean that Poe cared for Kylo’s past self, that Ben, and seeing Kylo was something sour turned rotten. He hoped that maybe one seed would grow from that rot, like the flower in the garbage heap. But apparently he had not quite yet bloomed.

Dinner is filled with talk about the mission, and that’s when Kylo catches it: they’re going to the Cularin system.

“Cularin?” he asks. He knows it’s a show of hand to be saying this. It’s obvious he wasn’t paying any attention. But Rey takes it in stride. 

“Right outside the Republic’s boundaries, a two day flight,” she says, nodding at Poe to confirm. He nods, and looks at Kylo worryingly. 

“Is that a problem?” Poe asks, a challenge, an assurance.

“It’s a force infused planet,” Kylo says, knowing he’s sounding weird and behind topic, but Ben looks more and more twitchy. No one seems to notice this.

Luke hums in interest. “I’ve heard of such places, even been to one, but usually they’re not heavily populated. We shouldn’t run into any trouble,” he says. 

That’s not what Kylo is worried about, but keeps his mouth shut, feeling Ben’s anxiety rise with each question asked.

Because of their guest, sleeping arrangements are close. 

Ben is sleeping in Kylo’s usual room, Poe in Luke’s, and thus Kylo is stuck on the floor of his own study turned bedroom. Rey sleeps on the couch, claiming it to be the most comfortable thing she’s ever slept on.

Kylo is still awake. He sneaks out of the room, trying to be light footed and silent. He feels every step is piercingly loud. But he manages to make it back to the library, no one the wiser. 

He racks his mind as he opens the datapad. He swears that he saw something on Cularin the other day in his search, but where?

He’s flipping through the files that he can remember, as he usually wipes the history and searches clean after an afternoon of research. But Cularin doesn’t show up in any searches except to say that it’s a force infused planet, and it’s location. Nothing else shows up. Like the database was wiped except those two facts. Kylo’s brow draws in, and that's when he hears a noise behind him. 

There’s a dim light of a fusion lantern that clunks on the table in front of him. Kylo blinks to adjust his eyes to the light.

It’s Poe. He doesn’t have his weapon out, but Kylo knows not to underestimate Poe’s quick movements, or his luck.

“Fancy seeing you in here,” Poe says nonchalantly. He’s leaning his hip against the desk, arms crossed. 

“I like reading,” Kylo says, turning back to wipe the history clean again. 

“What are you reading?” Poe is right behind him now, and if Kylo didn’t know better, didn’t have the experience, he might think that it’s an interrogation. 

“About Cularin.” He raises the datapad to show Poe the last page open. 

Poe frowns. It seems he was expecting something else. Something sinister, maybe.

“Commander Dameron,” Kylo says, looking up at Poe, still standing over him, hip cocked and waiting. This never gets any easier, no matter how many times he’s said it. “I’m sorry.”

Poe scowls at this. Sneers almost. “Sorry?” he hisses, looking at Kylo like he’s crazy. Maybe he is.

“I apologize for my actions, towards you and others, but for right now, you in particular.”

“I don’t forgive you.” Poe says, flat and harsh. He blinks rapidly, and turns his head away from Kylo.

“I understand,” Kylo says, and rises. Poe takes a step back.

“That’s it?!” Poe says, realizing halfway into his sentence that people are sleeping. His voice goes quiet, but no less furious. “You’re sorry, and you understand?”

“I’m asking for forgiveness, Commander. I know it can be impossible to forgive someone,” even yourself, Kylo thinks, but continues, “But yes. That’s it. That’s all I can ask. And I will take anything you will give.”

Kylo recognizes that sounds like a dismissal and a proposition, and he blushes, looks down at his hands. “I’m given the chance to live for myself each day, and that is what I ask of you today. Not to give me a chance, but to allow me to change.” He looks up, and Poe looks chagrined. Kylo’s overdone it again. “You can be angry, hate me, that’s fine. You don’t even have to give me that room to change.”

Poe holds up a hand to stop Kylo from talking. “Look, I don’t know where you’re coming from, but I don’t trust you. I can’t—” he waves at Kylo’s general direction. “I can’t right now.”

Kylo nods, and heads towards the door, making sure not to touch Poe on the way out. 

“But,” Poe says, just as Kylo’s reached the door frame. “Thank you.” 

Kylo turns his head, confused, but doesn’t back into the room again. 

“I mean it’s weird, but I appreciate it. Even if—” Poe stops. “Thank you.” It’s quiet this time. 

And just like that, Poe Dameron has managed to turn a harsh reality into something warm and kind. Kylo wants to hate him for that. For thanking him, of all things, even while he hates him. Poe is welcome to feel whatever he needs, Kylo reminds himself, but it’s a little unfair that Kylo has to feel it too. Feel something other than fear and dread and remorse. 

He goes to sleep out under the stars, the blanket he stole from the cottage keeping the cold from his body, but the thankfulness of Poe Dameron keeps his heart warm.

 

The next morning, they pack everything they need in bundles and trek down the path to the ship. It’s a standard carrier, nothing fancy, but nothing looking like a wreck, either. Poe walks with Rey as he catches her up on Finn. “Doing great, guy’s taking to the Resistance like a champ.”

Rey nods, she bites her lip. “Does he…” and she blushes.

Some part of Poe wants to drag this out, let Rey hang on, but on the other hand he’s not a complete asshole. 

He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a holocomm, one message on it, from Finn to Rey. 

“He talks about you,” is all he says as he hands it over. “A lot,” he finishes. 

“Thank you,” she says, looking down at her gift. 

“Just the messenger,” Poe says holding up his hands. He smiles at her. “Let me know if you want to reply, I can set you up.”

She smiles, and tucks the holocomm in the folds of her robe. 

The morning is gray and misty, so they slowly pick each step to the bottom. Skywalker had told him last night that at one time it was a thriving Jedi temple, but now in ruins, thanks to the Empire.

Poe wants to ask Rey about Ben, about Kylo. But he doesn’t know where to start. He clears his throat and says, “So what’s up with the twins?”

Rey squints at him. “You know everything, Poe. Ben showed up four days ago.”

“And that’s it?”

“All they’ll tell us.”

“So there’s something else going on.”

Rey looks like she might regret talking to Poe about this. “Ben wouldn’t say where he was until you got here. And I think he knows something that he’s not letting us know.”

“And Kylo?” Poe asks, remembering his large frame standing next to him, long hair and dark eyes, a pang of remembering the kid he used to play with way back when. 

“He’s usually upfront about what he’s doing.” She waves her hand vaguely in front of her. “He cues you to his movements. He doesn’t feel—” Rey stops herself from over sharing.

“Like at all?” Poe asks. He knows he’s being an asshole now. But he needs to know: will Kylo go back to what he was?

“He doesn’t feel safe.” She says, quiet, sad. She pushes ahead, leaving Poe to take up the back by himself. 

He wants to say _good_ , or _I don’t feel safe_ , but Rey was already gone, and he isn’t sure she’d even want to hear anything like that.

Looks like he’s on his own. Unless… his eyes hone in on the back of Ben Solo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poe's not up to any good. As per usual.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> Thanks for all the comments and kudos! They give me the warm fuzzies, for sure!


	3. Chapter 3

Poe punches in the coordinates and sets off into the sky. He makes a path towards Cularin’s sister moon, that way he doesn’t actually trip into any time-space holes. 

But Luke was right, the set coordinates and flight plans of hyperspace were set because of certain space and time fluxes within the galaxy. Setting in coordinates on an unknown flight path was suicide, because the ship could end up smashed with another ship, or a planet for that matter. So it’s possible that Ben set new coordinates, but Rey was right: Ben wasn’t talking. He would talk to Rey or _Kylo_ , of all people, making Poe feel incredibly awkward, but almost seemed to be avoiding Poe. 

Didn’t Ben say something about a beard? Poe leans back in the captain’s chair and strokes his smooth face. He’s never grown one except on long missions where no razor was available, but otherwise, Poe usually shaved. If Ben had really just shown up, (Poe will admit this is a little hard to believe) then he’d never seen Poe with a beard. Meaning there was another Poe, Ben’s Poe, that had a beard. Interesting.

Poe double checks the flight plan and sees that everything is running smoothly before he gets up. He goes out to the galley, and passes by the game board, Ben sitting there, looking at the holodeck. 

This is not Poe’s ship, but it’s easy enough to start a game. “Want to play a round?” he asks, and Ben starts. He looks up, and gets that look he always has when seeing Poe. Like something bittersweet is rolling on his tongue. “Reminds me of the Falcon,” Ben says, an offer of a seat as he waves his hand to the seat near him on the bench. 

“Never been on it,” Poe says. Which is true. He remembers it from his childhood when the Organa-Solos were planet-side on Yavin IV, but he’d never actually ventured on it. Ben - Kylo - always seemed to steer them away from the ship in their play. 

What could possibly be said next?

“So there’s another Commander Dameron,” Poe says, at the lack of anything else to say. And while running his mouth may have gotten him in trouble a time or two, at least everyone knew what page he was on. 

Ben’s mouth goes flat before a crooked smile crosses his face. It looks fake as hell. “Nope,” he says, raising his eyebrows. He holds it a moment, before looking at Poe for a moment, unsure. “Admiral,” he says instead.

Poe feels like his whole face has gone numb. In another universe he’s an Admiral. “In the Resistance?” he asks. 

Ben shakes his head. “The New Republic still stands.” He says it, lifeless. 

“Is there a First Order in your galaxy?” Poe asks. 

Ben waits for a moment, then nods. “There’s no Resistance, either. Just a broken government holding an new one together in it’s chaos.”

Poe wants to ask where the hell Leia was, she was the one who started the Resistance, so surely she would do so in that one, right? But Poe was thinking that all the variables in Ben’s universe were the same. The fact could be that there’s no Leia, either. 

The thought brings a chill to Poe, but Ben reveals nothing new. 

“But we know each other,” Poe pushes on. 

“Oh we know each other,” Ben says, and then hesitates. 

“We friends?”

“Uh, no.” Ben chuckles. “No we’re not friends.”

Poe’s face scrunches up. “I don’t get it, why wouldn’t you and I get along, we’re doing okay now,” he says. He leaves out the part where he feels weird talking to a different version of Kylo, a what could have been, and leaves out the part where he thinks that Ben is handsome, if a liar. But Poe hasn’t proved the liar part yet, so he’s resigned to digging it out of Ben.

“You’re a lot less…” Ben waves his hand around vaguely, indicating Poe’s form. “Rigid,” he finishes.

So the Admiral was uptight? Poe wondered what could possibly be the answer to that, what could change him so much. But then the thought occurs to him, that maybe the other him isn’t really him at all. Just like Ben isn’t really Kylo. But there has to be some similarities other than looks, right? Ben is easy going and loose just as Kylo is calm, eerily so. 

But the idea that the other Poe could be… he doesn’t know what, and honestly, kind of doesn’t want to know as much as does want to. A morbid curiosity. 

Rey comes in, dirty somehow.

“We’ve only been on the ship for an hour, what have you been up to?” Poe asks, amused.

“Looking in the guts!” Rey says, trying to wipe oil off her hand, but only smearing it further. “Kylo and I noticed there’s a screeching coming from the flux constrictors, so we decided to investigate.”

“Wait, what?” Poe asks, getting up. Rey is saying something else, but Poe doesn’t hear it as he walks quickly, not running, down to the core, and there indeed, the plates are open, and Kylo is hanging off of them, ass in the air, legs braced against the ledge, his torso bent deep into wires and tubes.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Poe asks, trying to stay calm. Leia practically called this a milk run, but with precious cargo. Poe tries to keep that in mind as he watches Kylo slither out from his position to straddle the piping. 

“The ship isn’t running right,” Kylo says matter of fact, like he’s not rooting around in the Resistance’s only passenger class ship. The General might find this funny, he thinks distantly, even charming. 

Kylo looks up, and sees how angry Poe is. Rey is peering past him to see if Kylo found the flux constrictors. Ben is biting his lip to not laugh. Kylo can feel his face twitch in sympathy. Poe looks about ten seconds from a space apoplexy, so Kylo reaches out to grab the spanner to his left, and Poe practically squawks. 

“You’re just going ahead and messing with my ship?”

“It’s not your ship, Commander, it’s the Resistance’s. And the General will not pleased that this particular one, with her brother on it, and technically, two of her sons, isn’t running to specs.”

Ben laughs. “He’s got you there, kid.”

Poe glares at him. “I’m three years older than you,” he says, waving at the both of them. Kylo is already tuning them out and reaching down again to the flux constrictor.

“The flux constrictor is not important in the grand scheme of things,” Poe says, almost pleading.

“Oh just let them do this,” Ben says. “We’ve got four days. What are we going to do? Play strip sabacc?”

“No thank you,” Rey says, grimacing. 

Ben gestures as if to say, see? Kylo pops his arm out of the open plate, a circuit board in his hand. 

“The Hadrian capacitor!” Rey says, reaching for it. Kylo hands it over. 

“What?” Kylo asks, sliding out of the hole, and sitting on the floor.

“It runs the core data to the constrictors.” Rey squats on the floor, peering into the hole. “If you drill the —”

“Stop!” Poe yells. “No one is drilling anything. Are the flux constrictors fixed?” he asks, looking between Kylo and Rey. 

“As much as they can be without replacing them,” Kylo says. 

“Is there anything else wrong with the ship?” Poe asks, hands out, sounding like a teacher of younglings. 

“Not now,” Rey chirps. She holds out a hand for Kylo to grab to get up. He grabs it and heaves up. 

“We can breathe easy now,” Ben says. “Crisis averted. Great teamwork everyone.”

“Chaya’s soul, shut up,” Poe growls. He rubs his face in frustration. 

Ben winks at him. “There’s the Admiral I know.”

 

Ben was right though, there wasn’t much to do for four days on a ship traveling through space. 

Meal times were always awkward, the galley table not large enough for everyone, someone always left standing.

But even worse were sleeping arrangements. 

The passenger ship was small enough it could be piloted by one, but that meant the actual passenger ship should be lower than four. With one extra person, and no couch, it made things weird. There were two compartments, and each, two cots. Kylo offered to sleep on the floor. Rey and Ben rolled their eyes at this. 

“You’re sleeping with me, hotshot,” Ben says, “we’re practically the same person, anyway.” He grabs onto Kylo’s shoulder and squeezes. 

Kylo nods, and that night after Kylo hits the fresher, because he’s covered in oil and grease, he crawls into bed next to Ben. He’s hoping that Ben is as asleep as Poe, already sawing the proverbial log, but Ben immediately rolls over and waggles his eyebrows at Kylo.

“What do you know about Poe?” he whispers.

“This isn’t a sleepover,” Kylo says, low. 

Ben shifts closer, and says, “The thing is, there’s a Poe in my galaxy too. And he hates me. Meanwhile, this one is pumping me for information. I just want to know why.”

Kylo glares at him. “I don’t have the answers to Commander Dameron, Ben. And if he was asking you something, maybe it was warranted.”

“Wait, what does that mean?” Ben asks as Kylo tries to roll over. Ben throws an arm around Kylo’s frame and pulls him in, an embrace and a hold. Kylo knows he can throw Ben off, but it would be pointless. 

“I mean,” Kylo says past Ben’s shoulder, “That you’ve been avoiding questions since day one. And while you have a right to privacy, you should also let us know what you were up to so we can put you back where you belong.”

“I’ve told you about Cularin, isn’t that enough?” It’s a furious whisper, echoed through their touching skulls.

“I’m beginning to doubt you were even there. Or that you even want to get back.”

Ben pushes Kylo back at that, but Kylo hangs on, effectively trapping Ben’s arms to his sides. 

“Of course I want to get back,” Ben says. “That’s what I wanted from day one.”

“I think you don’t want to. I think you’re glad for the new slate,” Kylo says, wondering what he’s doing even as he’s saying it, “and I think there’s nothing for you in your galaxy anymore.”

Ben struggles at this. “How would you know, it’s not like you’ve been open about your shit, either. I had to find out from Rey, of all people. Rey told me what you did, who you are.”

Kylo releases Ben at this, and Ben shoves him off the bed. Kylo’s body hits the ground with a considerable thunk, and they both pause as Poe across the room and forgotten for a moment groans. 

“The fuck are you two doing?” Poe asks blearily.

“Nothing,” Ben says, rolling back over to face the wall. “Go back to sleep.”

Kylo sighs and rolls onto his side. It’s going to be a long night.

 

Kylo is jarred by someone shaking him just as he falls asleep. “Why are you sleeping on the floor?” Kylo opens his eyes to see Poe standing over him, bent over with hands on his knees. 

Before Kylo can come up with a good reply, Poe says, “Go get in my bed, I’ve got to check on the ship.”

Kylo moans, and puts his head back on his arm. Poe might mean it now, but coming back to find Kylo Ren in his bed isn’t something he really wants.

But Poe is tugging at his arm for him to get up, and Kylo stumbles the two steps over to Poe’s cot, and slumps into the frame of the bed. 

“Thanks,” Kylo says, eyelids heavy, words uneasy.

“Whatever, just don’t sleep on the floor, you’re not a womprat.”

There’s the tone of something gentle in Poe’s voice, but Kylo falls asleep before he can dig deeper into it.

The next thing Kylo knows someone’s shaking him again. “What,” he groans. He opens his eyes to see Ben. Kylo’s first instinct is to bat him away, but that feels childish, so he just waits.

“Sorry about last night,” Ben says. He sounds contrite, too.

“Okay,” Kylo says. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I didn’t know… Kylo how long has it been going on?”

Kylo realizes that that’s all the sleep he’s going to get for the night, and sighs. He opens his eyes and wills them to stay open. It almost works.

“How long has what been going on?”

“The nightmares,” Ben says, and Kylo is suddenly very much awake. He feels a flush of shame, and then of anger. He lets it swell over him, and breathes in deep, to exhale it out. To let it go. 

“As long as I can remember,” Ben says, which is true. Snoke has followed him all his life, and it seems that even in the deep of space can still find him, still hurt him. He’d been doing so well, too. And now this. Kylo blushes, and rubs a hand over his face. “Did I say anything?”

“Not really, just. No. And Stop.” Ben pauses. “What happened?”

And Kylo desperately wants to tell Ben as much as he doesn’t. He wants Ben to know what he’s missing out on, but doesn’t want to force the issue on him. Ben doesn’t need this, just as Kylo doesn’t.

But Ben lays a hand on Kylo’s head, and gently runs a hand over and through his hair. “Tell me,” Ben says, “And I’ll tell you about me.”

It’s a compromise and a deal that Kylo can’t refuse. So he opens his mouth and tells Ben everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all for the kind comments and kudos! This week has been particularly rough, as I just moved to a new city for a new job, and have to give my cat away.
> 
> But, my computer is actually working, so I can post this! See you next Sunday.


	4. Chapter 4

Breakfast is strange after that. Ben wanders around with his caf and a regulation ration bar and alternates between the two and mulls over what Kylo had told him. It’s a lot to think about, and Kylo had told him he would understand if Ben didn’t want to speak to him again, but Ben looked him in the eye, and said that everyone had done things in their life they hated. But that the Kylo now is the one that was important. The Kylo trying to redeem himself, asking for forgiveness at every turn, that was the one that mattered. And that Snoke could go fuck himself.

Kylo snorted at that.

Ben waits until everyone is finished eating, and sits down on the edge of the galley table, half on and half off. “I have something to tell you all,” he says to the table, not looking up. 

Kylo waits, and there’s an expectant silence that follows.

“I’m a smuggler,” Ben says. “I run high end cargo to the highest bidder. That’s what I was doing when I got zapped here. I was looking for an artifact.”

Like father like son, Kylo thinks. Is this what he would have been if he never had the force in the first place?

“What artifact?” Luke asks, as if the rest of the statement was superfluous. To him, it might be. Rey looks intrigued, but Poe looks confused.

“That’s just it, I don’t know. I know it’s on Cularin, and that the First Order wants it, and that it has to do with the force.” Ben spreads his hands. “That’s all I know.”

“You work for the First Order,” Poe says flatly. His face is blank, but his tone is verging on hateful.

“The highest bidder,” Ben says. “They usually are, unless it’s another criminal.”

Luke holds out his hand, palm out. “What’s important right now is that Ben has told us what he knows, and we can use that to research.” Luke looks up at Poe. “I’m hoping there’s encrypted datapads on the ship?”

Poe nods. 

“Good, we’ll start with what we know about Cularin, and add any Jedi artifacts to the mix. Hopefully something will crop up.”

With that, Poe gets up and finds the datapads to hand out. There are four. Rey looks resigned, and Ben uninterested and not guilty in the slightest. Kylo can’t see that Ben would think he would be, but Poe acts more coldly towards him. This seems to suit Ben just fine. Kylo remembers that last night Ben was saying his Poe hardly ever talked to him. But why would he want to know more?

It’s food for thought, but it has to be put on the back burner for now, because Poe hands a datapad to Kylo, and Kylo starts his search right there at the galley table.

There’s very little information. It appears it was once heavily populated by the Tularins, and that the ch’hala tree comes from there, but little else. If they’re going to find anything, they need to go a different route. 

The problem with Jedi artifacts, of course, is that they’re usually kept mum about. What could possibly be so useful, so powerful, in a Jedi’s mind, of course needs to be hidden. But of the artifacts Kylo’s read about in his other searches, they’ve all been destroyed, especially after the Great Jedi Purge. Others were hidden along with the Jedi. 

But if any Jedi were left to be found, a force imbued planet would be a good place to look. Kylo pulls back up information on the Purge, and starts there. 

It’s a tedious morning, followed by ration bars, and an even more tedious afternoon. Kylo rubs his eyes, feeling like the words are swimming in front of him, no longer making any sense. So much death, and in the aftermath of the Empire, people who thought they were finally safe. But Kylo rose from that and showed them how wrong they were, how one force user could still turn to the dark side, could choose a life of hatred.

Kylo pushes back from the table, and gets up. It’s almost time for his meditation, anyway. And now his mind has fresh fodder to run through, new nightmares to relate to. 

He’s ready to settle in, legs already crossed beneath him on the floor, when Rey comes in. 

“May I?” she asks, already taking a seat in front of him, assuming the position. 

“Might as well,” Kylo replies, and wondered if she knew that he needed this. Needed someone else to sit by him and steady him, or if she wanted to simply meditate with him. 

They close their eyes facing each other, and the ship’s hum becomes their baseline, the energy of each other and the ship’s passengers flowing and feeding the session.

Kylo feels the blue thrum of the force, pure and solvent wash over him. In these moments he becomes still, becomes nothing.

He gets a flash of his own gloved hand reaching, grabbing for something, and then hears a thud and a scream as Poe Dameron’s face becomes clear. His own saber slashing at younglings, telling others to kill, and then the gasp and tears of his father, before he falls into the abyss. The fight with a young man, Finn, and with Rey, the emotions overwhelming him, screaming into the void, the hot slash of the lightsaber across his face, and then and then — 

Blue, and the calmness that the force brings is thrown at him, pushing him over, and the thud of his back to the floor is what brings him to focus, his eyes wide, feeling the false calm of another - Rey.

Rey’s eyes are squeezed tightly shut, and she’s shaking with the effort to let Kylo feel what she feels. He clumsily reaches out with a foot and lightly kicks her, and she jolts, her eyes open, and she’s heaving.

The door behind her slides open, and Luke is standing there, concerned. “What-” he says, looking over the scene. 

Kylo raises an arm to calm him, but can’t come up with words to explain it.

“Kylo and I were meditating, and he started remembering, and I didn’t know what to do, so I just kind of shoved force at him?” she says, unsure of what happened too. She looks over at Kylo, a look of concern on her face. 

Kylo can only nod. He swallows, and rolls back up to sit. He hears the pounding of feet then a swish of boots sliding on steel, and Poe and Ben are there. 

“We saw Uncle Luke run past, is everything okay?” Ben asks.

“Everything is fine, just a little force tussle, I’m afraid.” 

Poe puffs up, and shoulders in to see the situation at hand, probably ready to yell at Kylo. But he stops at the look Rey and Kylo give him, and he offers both hands to help them up. “Force tussle?” he asks, clasping hands with the both of them and pulling up.

“Kylo was struggling with something, and Rey helped by shoving it at him. Just a little too hard,” Luke says with amusement. Rey looks down, embarrassed, so Kylo reaches out and squeezes her arm. She looks up, and smiles at him.

“You okay?” Poe asks, and Kylo is looking at Rey, and waits for her to reply. But when her eyes glide over to Poe and then back to himself, Kylo realizes. Poe is asking him. 

“I’m fine,” he says, after what he feels is too long. He sees Poe’s warm brown eyes watching him, and his stomach swoops. _Get it together,_ he thinks, dipping his head, letting his hair hide his face.

“Well it’s almost ration time,” Ben says. “We can talk about who found out what over military food that dates back to the Empire.”

 

It seems that nobody was lucky, even if they were productive. Poe looked over charted flight path near and around Cularin and its two moons, but found little to nothing. Luke and Rey both researched the sector to see if anything would come up, but no such luck. Kylo added what he found, and Ben what he did, and it all came to a zero. 

It was frustrating to say in the least, and Rey bites into her ration bar with a fierceness that borders on savage. She’s not one for giant displays of hyperbole but this particular cycle has been useless.

And then she had to meditate with Kylo and make it worse. He didn’t look as sullen as he usually did after a session, and that was good, progress even, but she still feels like she made it worse somehow. She could feel his pain and torment coming off of him in waves, and not knowing what else to do, pushed the calmness she had felt, that they had felt, because she knew he felt it for a moment too, and shoved it towards him. It was obviously too much for the both of them, because Kylo looked shaken if okay, and she felt completely drained. She couldn’t wait for dinner to be over so she could smash face first in her cot. 

But even as it was wrapping up, Luke getting up and making ‘old man’ excuses that no one bought for a moment, Ben leans in to whisper to Rey. “Is there something off about Kylo?” he whispers to her as Kylo and Poe are distracted in saying goodnight to Luke. “More than usual, I mean,” Ben says.

Rey elbows him sharply, and he hisses in pain. Poe and Kylo both look back to them, and Rey smiles, and she doesn’t know because she can’t look at him right now, but she senses that Ben is doing the same.

“A game of sabacc, anyone?” Ben asks, and Poe shrugs as Kylo rolls his eyes. “What,” Ben says at this, “think you can’t hack it?”

“I’ll be fine,” Kylo says as Poe sits down to the game table. “It’s your lack of a filter I’m worried about.”

Poe laughs. He reaches down under the table for the card compartment.

“I’ve never played,” Rey says.

Ben stares at her. “Are you serious?”

“I had to scavenge to eat, that didn’t leave much time for playing cards,” she says as Poe starts dealing them out.

“I’ll show you,” Kylo offers.

“What, I’m not good enough?” Ben asks, mock affronted.

“We’ll see about that,” Kylo replies. But he smiles softly at Ben, to let him know everything is fine.

“So what are we betting?” Ben says as he scoots further into the round booth, Poe to his left, and Kylo then Rey to his right.

“Not clothes,” Rey says. “At least, not until I’m better at this.”

Poe chuckles. “Okay, not clothes. I take it no one has credits either.”

Everyone shakes their heads. 

“Truths?” Rey asks. It might be dangerous, but wasn’t that part of the game? “A stake in it for everyone, and no one will want to lose.”

“There’s two pots though,” Kylo says, as he fiddles with the electronic cards. “One for each hand or round,” he explains, “and a final one that you have to ante into each time.”

“What if we ditch the final pot?” Poe asks. 

Kylo shrugs while Ben squawks. “Come on! The final pot is the best part! How else when we know when the game is over?”

“Okay, so each round the losers state one fact about themselves, and the final pot can be the winner asking a question to which you have to answer,” Poe says.

“That’s good,” Ben points, then picks up his cards.

“I’m a Commander, I know strategy. Alright, everyone have their cards? Okay, let’s start.”

Kylo leans into Rey’s space as he looks at her hand. 

“What does any of this mean?” she asks. There are some face cards, and numbered cards quickly changing value, and five of them, but after that, Rey doesn’t know what to do.

“The goal of each hand is to get as close to the value of twenty three,” Kylo says. “That can be negative or positive.” He reaches in and rearranges Rey’s hand. Face, then numbers.

“Each round the dealer will let you know the value of the face cards.” He taps the electronic card and it flickers. “The face value of the cards fluctuates. Usually there’s a suspension field, but we just have Poe for tonight.”

“I make a great suspension field. Idiots zero, Queens five, Evil Ones ten, and Stars negative ten. Suits are as is for this round,” he says, tapping on the table. The numbers still.

“There are four suits, Flasks, Sabers, Staves, and Coins. You have working eyes, so you can figure those out.”

“Anything else?” Rey asks, as she quickly tallies up her hand. Eighteen. 

“The Idiot’s Array,” Kylo says, and Ben repeats it, grumbling. Like it did something to him in the past. Rey, confused, looks at Kylo. 

“You’ll have the Idiot, a one, a two and a three of the same suit. It’s the trump hand. It signals that you won the round, and the game. It’s a rarity, so usually it’s the Pure Sabaac, or twenty three, that closes the game.”

“Okay,” Rey says, straightening her shoulders. “I’m ready.”

“The shifting is stilled, so now we draw or discard,” Kylo says, and shows her his hand. Negative thirteen. “I draw two,” he says, and Poe slides two cards his way, a strange smile on his face. A negative four and an Idiot. Negative seventeen. 

“Do you discard?” Poe asks, mimicking a dealer droid. 

“I hold,” Kylo says, surprising Rey. 

“I hold,” she repeats, laying her cards down. 

Ben discards two. Poe draws one and discards one. 

Kylo says, “I can’t call on my turn, so I still have the opportunity to draw again. Remember, the numbers are constantly changing until you get them in the suspension field, so by the time it gets to Poe, you might have a completely different hand. I draw one.” Ben is starting to look bored, but Rey sees a flash of negative one. Kylo and Rey now have the same value, but Kylo holds again, and Ben calls.

Kylo places his cards face up, and Rey follows suit. Ben has sixteen, and Poe negative four. 

“What now?” Rey asks. 

“Positive always trumps negative, you won the hand,” Ben says. 

Rey gapes at Kylo. “You let me win.” 

He shrugs. “It’s your first round, I doubt you’ll let it go to your head.”

“Okay then,” she says, leaning back and looking smug. “I want my truths.”

“When I was little, I wanted a pet mynock,” Ben offers, and everyone else at the table grimaces. 

“Gross,” Poe says, laughing a little. “I once hid all my sweets in the force tree near my house.” He looks to Kylo, and then Rey starts to wonder if this was a good idea. Kylo had a million truths, but it was more comforting to know the lies, sometimes.

“Han taught me how to read fortunes with sabacc cards,” he says, and no one breathes a sigh of relief. At least visibly, but Rey notices that Poe loosens up considerably, and Ben leans in. 

“He never taught me that,” Ben says. “Can you tell my fortune?” 

Kylo puts the deck in front of Ben. “Cut the deck twice, and when it feels right, pull three cards.”

They all lean in as Ben does so. 

The Evil One, an Idiot and a Flask.

He looks up at Kylo who’s focusing on the cards.

“You’re facing a danger you are unaware of. You think you have answers that you don’t. You will be blessed soon by something unexpected,” he says.

Rey looks up at Ben, his eyes wide and focused on Kylo. “Seriously?” he whispers. “That’s it? No particulars?”

“The future is always moving,” Kylo says, leaning back. He lets this sink in as everyone stares at the cards. “But yes, that’s it. I’m not a Ryn, I can’t actually tell your fortune.”

Ben huffs, and pushes the cards towards Kylo. “Do it again,” he says, “but on Poe.”

Rey wants to object, Ben is heading towards dangerous waters, but Poe shrugs, and takes the deck. He pulls three cards after a moment.

An Idiot, a Coin, and a Queen.

Everyone looks at Kylo, who studies the cards, then Poe. “You have treasures you are not aware of. Look deeper.” He touches the Queen. “You are very trusted, but you must learn to trust yourself.” He blinks, looks again at the cards. “You are in a position of power, but do not let it soil the hidden wealth.”

“If you pull a credit chip out behind my ear I will not hesitate to hit you,” Poe says.

Kylo smiles, and Poe smiles back, surprised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sunday! Thanks for the incoming kudos and comments, they are always awesome and keep me going. Enjoy.


	5. Chapter 5

That night Kylo pulls the pillow off of Ben’s bed, and lays it on the floor.

He’s just settling in, when Ben and Poe walk in. Kylo thinks it’s strange that they’re always together, but swallows it down. He doesn’t own Poe, even if that thought crawls into his head all the same. He can’t deny that the crush he once had is back in full flame. And if Poe wants Ben, who is Kylo to stop them? 

Poe sighs on seeing Kylo on the ground.

“Come on, man,” he says. He sounds exasperated. 

Ben sits on his cot and pulls off his boots. “Come on, little brother,” he says patting the space next to him. 

Kylo squeezes his eyes shut tight. He didn’t do this for pity. He did it because he knew he’d end up on the floor again.

Kylo shrugs off his robes, leaving him in tunic and trousers. He pads over to the cot with the pillow and sits while Ben lies back and wriggles around.

“What are you waiting for?” Ben asks.

“For you to finish,” Kylo says. He lays down and sighs. Ben throws covers over them both. 

“Hilarious. Go to sleep,” Ben says.

He does. Most nights he’s blessed with darkness, a sweet nothing to fall back into. Once in a while, he’ll actually dream, vivid and wild, not one iota making sense. He feels weird and disjointed the following day. But sometimes, just sometimes, he meets with Snoke. Or Snoke finds him. Either way, Kylo is drenched in sweat and he can’t tell which way is up, and the old rhetoric of being worthless and meaningless flows into him. He feels the power that Snoke is offering to him, the power that Kylo himself has within himself. It is tempting. To rule the galaxy, no one to tell him no, and then that he’s alone. Alone in his power, alone in his miserableness, alone in his desire to be more. 

Kylo gasps awake, in full blown panic. He’s trying to breathe, in and out, but he can’t, all he can feel is the flush of heat and then the chills that follow. He’s aware that Ben is holding him tight from behind, talking to him. Just words he can’t quite make out yet, and Poe comes into Kylo’s vision, and kneels next to him, and presses up against him, a warmth, a steadiness that Kylo can’t grasp yet. Kylo knows he’s sobbing, but with two sets of arms around him the world doesn’t seem so impossible.

Ben’s words come into focus. “Mom died when I was young, and all I had left was Dad and Chewie, and they sure as hell didn’t know what to do with a kid, so he just dragged me across the galaxy. He got killed when I was twenty. He just couldn’t go on without Mom, at least that’s what the local healer said. Chewie’s life debt was completed, but he stuck around until I figured out what to do. I ended up taking up jobs just like the old man, because I sure as hell couldn’t do anything else. Smuggled more, faster, and eventually ditched the Millennium Falcon because that was a beacon to anyone who knew my dad, and he had more bounties on his head than he knew. I burned it. Watched the only home I knew go up in flames. And I was glad.”

Kylo’s breath comes easier, even as he still shakes. “S-sorry,” he stutters out. For what, for everything.

“Don’t be. I’m not.”

Kylo hiccups, “I wish I didn’t have the force,” he admits, digging his face into Poe’s clothed shoulder. He doesn’t say that he wishes he was more like Ben, but it doesn’t need to be. 

“Why?” Ben asks, rubbing Kylo’s arms. “I always wanted it,” he says. “I thought it must be the greatest thing in the world.”

Kylo sniffs and laughs. It sounds hollow as he feels. “He tells me,” he says in a whisper, and Ben knows, even if Poe doesn’t, but Poe will now. “He tells I’m more than this, that I’m powerful, and that I’m alone.”

“That’s fucked up,” Poe says after a moment of silence follows the confession. 

“Poe’s right. Kylo,” Ben says as he pulls him in closer. “Yes, you are powerful, and yes, you are more than this. But Kylo you are not alone.” Ben squeezes him tight. “You have me.”

“And me,” Poe says, low. 

Kylo sighs, wanting to believe, because they believe.

“I didn’t always,” he says, not knowing how to say thank you when he’s so empty inside.

“Well you do now,” Ben says. 

 

When Kylo wakes up again, Poe is gone, and Ben is behind him, breathing deep and even. Kylo, now awake, if tired from the panic attack earlier, slides out from under Ben’s arm and walks over to the door, willing it to be silent as it hisses open and shut.

He searches out Poe, and finds him in the cockpit. There’s two seats behind the captain’s chair, a type of bench. 

He takes the one behind on the other side of the cockpit, and swallows. “Thank you,” he says to the back of Poe’s head. “I know…I know that it’s not easy for you, and I wanted to thank you.” 

Poe sighs, and leans back, looking out the transparasteel to the stars zooming around them. “I can’t sleep well in hyperspace,” he says. “Never could.”

He spins around to face Kylo. “The span of time it took for me to get back to the base from that crashed TIE fighter on Jakku, I didn’t sleep. I kept thinking, why? Why Ben?”

Kylo bows his head. He waits. 

“Here was this kid I knew, smart as a whip, funny, and sweet, and he grew up to be a monster. Somebody’s nightmare. I was mad, and then I shoved it away. There were other things to worry about.

“When you came back,” Poe shakes his head. “I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t think of you as Ben anymore, but you weren’t really that monster either. You were broken. But I still couldn’t help being mad. If all it took was someone forcing you home and talking to you, why didn’t I do that?”

Kylo frowns and looks up from the floor. “You’re not responsible for my actions, I am.”

Poe nods, but still looks troubled. “And I was mad because I didn’t know. Kylo,” Poe says, “Why didn’t you tell me? About Snoke? About everything?” Poe looks lost. “I don’t know what I could have done, but damn it, at least I would have been with you.”

Kylo doesn’t know what to say to this. He’d never even considered telling someone. How could he if he was alone? But it looks like he’s not as alone as he once thought. It brings to mind a thousand what ifs, but what is, is. He cannot change the past, but he can change himself. He wonders what Ben would do for a moment, in a time like this. Say something flippant, probably, but for now he knows that Poe is waiting for an answer that Kylo cannot give.

“I don’t know what the future will hold, Commander, but I’m thankful you are here with me. I’m with you too.”

Poe laughs, slaps a hand on Kylo’s arm. “You can call me Poe,” he says, smiling.

And that feels more like a gift than the explanation. Kylo’s lips twitch up into a smile, one corner higher than the other.

 

That day everyone goes back to their research. Except Kylo. Kylo, who had his own research to do, to finish what he started back on the island. He goes back to the Great Jedi Purge. It seems that there wasn’t anyone left on the planet Cularin, even force infused as it was. 

He has to line up his facts. What does he know? They are looking for an artifact, something the First Order would want. So, something powerful, then. Something that could harm not just Jedi, but other people too.

What else would they want? Kylo leans back and thinks. His robes are itchy again, but he put them on because he always found space to be cold. 

The First Order would want something that could wield a massive amount of power, now that the Starkiller is dead. Something that could help them rule the galaxy with such force… 

Kylo pauses. There was something he was reading, just before Ben showed up. A letter to a Senator.

Kylo types in Darkstaff and watches the results come in. The letter to the Senator, about how the Darkstaff was destroyed, about its great power. 

Kylo stares at the display blankly. The Darkstaff was destroyed by something else. Kylo reads over the letter again.

_Senator,_

_It is with deep regret that I must inform you that the Jedi have left. We entrust the Eye of the Sun, destroyer of the Darkstaff, in the care of the locals, deep in the heart of the tree. They are our allies._

_We now know what the future holds, ten years on._

_The Sith will not return here again, we have willed it so._

_Master Kybie_

 

The Eye of the Sun. That’s what Ben was after. The rest of the letter seems to be as if Kylo is missing some key elements, and not knowing what else to do, sends the information to the others.

Ben looks at it. “No, that’s not it,” he shakes his head. “It was something else, like a,” he hums.

“The Darkstaff?” Kylo asks, going on a hunch.

Ben’s eyes widen. “Yeah, that’s it.”

“But it was destroyed,” Rey says, turning to Luke.

“Could be that the Darkstaff was never destroyed in Ben’s world. It obviously wields great power, so I can understand that the First Order would want it.” Luke looks to Ben. “We’ve been delicate about our situation before, Ben, but know we need to know everything. Does the First Order have the Starkiller?”

Ben nods. “It will kill several planets, right?”

Poe chimes in, “The strongest in the New Republic.” There’s a pause, for what was lost. “What I don’t get is why they want the Darkstaff, if they have the Starkiller. What purpose would it have?”

“Because they don’t have me,” Kylo says, stilted. “Master Snoke presumably doesn’t have a pupil. And he needs one. Someone untrained, with enough raw power could use the Darkstaff.” His eyes widen. “Do you think he knows about Rey in Ben’s galaxy?”

Luke holds up a hand. “There’s a lot of questions we have to get through before we tackle what ifs.”

Kylo and Rey exchange looks. 

“So Ben needs to get the Eye and destroy the Darkstaff, right?” Rey asks.

“In his galaxy, yes. How we get him back there is another question entirely.”

They all pause at this, wondering what it would take, and how to get Ben back home.

 

They land close to civilization, and Luke leads everyone into town for more information and supplies. 

Kylo follows the group into the village, lagging behind, feeling his body automatically slump into a hunched position, the hood over his face.

He’s trying to be unnoticed, but still feels all the eyes of the crowd on him. He is still Kylo, but not the Master of the Knights of Ren anymore. 

Just ahead of him are the backs of his companions, and most notably, Ben, hands in pockets, elbows swaying loosely, leaning into Poe’s space. 

Poe. Kylo can think of him as Poe, now. But even as Kylo has gained in the relationship, he feels like he’s lost. Poe and Ben have been close these few days, closer than Kylo could ever hope to be. And in that, Kylo feels like he’s lacking. He’s not as suave or as quick-witted as Ben. Not as smooth, and not as broken.

Broken. Because that’s what Poe needs, someone who doesn’t have the weight of the galaxy on their shoulders. Someone who can live life with him, because what Kylo has is a half life. A bare remembrance of what was, before he was the evil one, and now, trying to build on those memories of who he was. But he can’t overcome his own past. It consumes him in his thoughts, day and night.

Poe doesn’t need that. So Kylo watches and wants, imagines smiles given freely, hands entwined. He can’t have it, but he can let Ben have it. Ben, whose interest in Poe is overwhelming. Why else would Ben try to get information out of him? Ben has what Kylo doesn’t: a fresh start.

Kylo’s more like a sprout from a rotted and felled tree, but Ben is the strong ch’hala that surrounds them. Beautiful and ever changing, each downfall another root. 

The rain soaks into Kylo’s hood as he treads along, the pack on his shoulders heavy, sounds of rain pattering on the giant leaves overhead in the canopy. Vines grow along the streets, encompassing the houses and market, shallow roofs echoing the steady rain, a gentle drumming. The force is here, in all things. But Kylo even caught up in the beauty recognizes the wary looks from the locals. He unwraps the scarf from his face, letting them see. But he curls in on himself more, trying not to be intimidating. 

The shop they squeeze into sells drinks, but not alcoholic. It’s tea, and Kylo almost rolls his eyes. Luke’s search for the perfect cup is going to run them aground. But the Tularin is welcoming, even as Luke goes over his wares. Luke turns to Kylo and makes eye contact before looking past his shoulder. Kylo nods, waits until Luke turns back around, and then ducks out of the shop. 

Across the street is a bar. Okay, now they’re getting somewhere. Kylo steps inside, and pulls his hood off. The floor is matted and risen, so rain will slough off into a drain. Better than the mud they’ve been tromping through. 

Kylo pulls up to the bar, and leans against it, asking for anything but Corellian brandy, because that only reminds him of his father.

He raises the glass in salute anyway, and takes a drink. The bartender is closed off, interminably cleaning glasses, but even the muck of this place should have good information. Naturally, it’s been awhile since he’s gotten information in a more indirect approach, but it should be like getting on a speeder.

The local next to him, brown eyes and dark skin, prominent nose, seems open enough. 

Kylo hesitates, then, “What are you drinking?” he asks, leaning on his left side, nodding to the glass. 

“Port in a Storm,” she says, a challenge. That mulled wine is no joke. 

“Can I get you another?” he asks. 

She looks at him, eyes narrowing. “For what?” she snaps.

“Information,” he says, because he can guess that she might get drink offers for other reasons. He is not among them. 

“On what,” she says, eyes darting around, hesitant. Has the First Order truly reached the Corellian Spine?

“Just some local history,” he says, raising his voice, trying to look more earnest, though he thinks his face is probably twitching in some semblance of looking mad. He hasn’t acted in eons. What was Luke thinking, sending him in? “I’m a professor at a university, and studying the cultural repercussions of the Great Jedi Purge.”

She crosses herself, hand to head to shoulder and back, “The Jedi have been gone a long time, professor…”

He holds a hand up for the bartender to put down his fifth glass cleaning, and says, “Bail.”

She nods, and Kylo gestures for the bartender to refill her drink. 

She drinks it and thunks the glass on the bar. “Bail. The Purge left our planet in shambles. But we pulled through.”

“I’ve read that your people were great allies to the Jedi.” 

“We’ve protected and been protected in return,” she says. Takes another drink, and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. 

“The Jedi left after the ten year removal,” she says, two cups in. It’s amazing she’s still on her feet, 

“The ten year removal?” Kylo asks, taking another drink. 

“The Darkstaff, made by the Sith.” She spits on the floor. “The Sith who owned it used the pyramid to lightening us into the next decade using the force.”

“So the whole planet disappeared for ten years, because it was moved ten years into the future?” he asks, wanting to make sure this was right.

She nods, swaying slightly. Kylo wants to reach out and steady her, but the earlier warning of her getting drinks from wayward suitors dissuades him.

“By the force,” she emphasizes.

Kylo nods, and bites his lip.

“But the Jedi moved after that time,” she says.

“Where was their temple before?”

“Cloud Mountain.” She takes another drink, then raises it high, pointing with her glass. “Just west of here, only peak for kilometers, can’t miss it.”

“The temple, does it have any special features? Anything of interest? I thought of taking a hike there…” Kylo fiddles with his glass, now empty. He gestures for a second one, not wanting to seem rude, but hating the feeling of wooziness and lost control. He’ll nurse this one, he thinks.

“That’s where the sacred grove is, but it’s not wise to tread on what’s not yours.”

“Privately owned?” he asks. He scratches an elbow and nods his thanks to the barkeep.

“No, but the Jedi have entrusted us with a gift, and we’re not to fall back on our promise.”

“Is the grove sacred because of the Jedi, then?”

“No!” her eyes gleam in what Kylo can’t discern between excitement or liquor. “The ch’hala tree is a gift from our ancestors, and the sacred grove is where it was first planted.”

“They are beautiful,” Kylo says, looking past her to the exit, where the roots fluctuate from blue to green. 

She holds up a finger. “It.” 

Kylo tilts his head. 

“It’s just one tree.”

 

Kylo spends entirely too long in the bar for anyone’s comfort, but when his hooded figure is spotted from the ship, Rey runs out to meet him. 

“What did you find?” she asks, trotting alongside him in the rain. 

“The bottom of three glasses of brandy, and an informant that could out drink a Wookie,” he says, slowly.

“Are you drunk?” she asks, grinning.

He shakes his head, steady. “Just a bit wobbly,” he admits. “Be my crutch, Rey.”

Rey laughs and slips under his arm, lending him steadiness as they make their way to the ship. She was worried someone had found out Kylo Ren was there, that maybe an informant had made their way to the Coreillan Spine and told the First Order. Rey had been mad that Luke sent Kylo off without her, so she waited impatiently at the ship.

But he was back, safe and sound.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life is getting hectic, so I apologize for not getting to your comments earlier! Enjoy, and I'll see you next week!


	6. Chapter 6

The ship is quiet without Kylo around. Which is odd, because Kylo is usually quiet himself. Quiet enough to not be taken notice of. But his absence leaves a space that is hard to fill with playful banter, try as Poe might. Sabacc is out of the question, even though Ben keeps angling for a game now that Kylo is gone. Rey would still beat him, but it just feels pointless. 

After the sun sets, Rey goes outside to wait on Kylo. 

Poe wants to take this time to ask a million questions of Ben, what he’s really after, what was the other Poe like, the Admiral. Most of all Poe wants to address the tension between them. The way Poe watches Ben and sees another lifetime with him, and the way he wants to know the curve of his mouth. 

He knows that Ben watches him too. And yes, it’s been two days, but there’s no harm in flirting, right? Now, if only Poe could remember how to flirt. He squints his eyes and raises an eyebrow. 

“Are you okay?” Ben asks. 

Poe deflates. “That was my flirting face.”

“It looks like something you ate disagreed with you,” Ben says, scrunching his face up, but smiling all the same.

“So it didn’t work?” Poe asks, pouting.

“Oh I didn’t say that,” Ben replies, cupping Poe’s face, running his hand down to his arm.

They lean in towards one another, and press lips together, gently. Poe leans his head more to the left, searching for that angle, the right moment, and the kiss is good. But it’s not great. In fact Poe’s had better. 

His second thought is that Ben’s had better too. Because Ben’s paused in his movements just as Poe has.

“Okay,” Ben says, pulling away. “That was… nice.”

“But weird,” Poe says.

“Okay good, I was hoping it wasn’t just me,” Ben says, relief flooding his features. He’s still holding Poe’s arm, but lets go slowly. “I mean, it was good, don’t get me wrong.”

“But not what you’re looking for,” Poe says, disappointed. He thought this could be something. Ben is unhappy in his galaxy, obvious even if he won’t say it, but there’s something holding him back.

“What if I grew a beard?” Poe asks, trying to bring in some levity. He smiles, waiting for the repling joke.

Ben’s face goes blank. “Don’t,” he says, quiet.

Poe pauses. “Wait, for real? It’s not me, it’s other me?” 

Ben sighs, heavy and brings his hands up to his face, rubbing. “It’s not fair,” he groans. “Look, Poe, you’re cute, and handsome, and funny, and bright, and I should want all those things, but I don’t.” He brings his hands down and looks at Poe, serious. “And neither do you.”

“Want me?” Poe asks, breathless. Knowing where this is headed, and trying so hard to cut this rope before Ben can reach him, “I can have me anytime, anywhere, that’s just the convenience of being myself,” he says, smiling, but even he can feel the smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

“You don’t want me,” Ben says, continuing, even after Poe’s non-worded plea to stop. “I mean, you think you want this,” he waves at himself. “And I don’t know, maybe some part of you really does, but I’m not what you really want. Who you really want.”

Poe’s mouth gapes open. “The balls on you!” he says, embarrassed, lashing out, knowing that’s what he’s doing, but unable to stop. “You think you know everything about me, and you’ve only been here four days, Solo.”

“I know, because I’m doing the same thing,” Ben continues, earnestly. And damn it all if it doesn’t remind Poe of that first night at the cottage when Kylo asked for his forgiveness, for room to change. “I’m using you,” Ben says. Poe shuts his eyes feeling like the worst idiot in the known galaxy, and maybe outside it, too. “And I’m sorry, but you’re using me too.” 

Ben shakes his head. “As much as I want to use you as a crutch, I can’t let you do that,” he says. “You’re too nice for that.”

“You don’t even know me,” Poe hisses, uselessly angry, unsure of where to aim his anger.

“I know me,” Ben says, “And I know Kylo.”

Poe groans. He can’t believe he’s having a heart to heart about Kylo of all people. 

“And he’s what you want. What you need. Even if you won’t admit it.”

 

Kylo is reading intently, his hand not on the datapad fiddling with his robes. 

Poe clears his throat. 

Kylo slowly puts down the datapad. Poe hears the echo of Rey’s voice, _he shows his movements_ , and asks, “Find anything?”

Kylo shakes his head. 

Poe looks over and sees the still image of a temple in it’s prime, and the title of the article, he skims over words like, ruins, Bethesda, Jedi, Empire.

“Was that here?” he asks, looking at Kylo.

“This is something else. I was hoping if I got my mind off of it, I’d…” he frowns quickly, and then looks to Poe. “How do you find inspiration?”

Poe looks at him, knowing somehow that while still on topic, Kylo was trying to steer him away. 

“Back to this,” he says, pointing to the pad. “What are you researching if not this planet?”

Kylo looks at him, blank. Then looks away. 

Aha, Poe thinks, even if he’s not sure what he’s aha-ing about quite yet. 

“Old Jedi temples. I wanted to see if there was anyone left, any traces of others that can be found, but it seems like they were completely wiped out.” Kylo looks up from the pad, staring straight in front of him. Then slowly turns to Poe, his eyes wide. “I’m an idiot,” he says, before grabbing the pad and furiously typing.

Poe’s first instinct is to soothe Kylo into believing he’s smart, but then Kylo pulls up a letter, and draws it up to holovid to show Poe.

“Read this,” he says. 

“Senator, 

It is with deep regret that I must inform you that the Jedi have left. We entrust the Eye of the Sun, destroyer of the Darkstaff, in the care of the locals, deep in the heart of the tree. They are our allies. 

We now know what the future holds, ten years on.”

Poe pauses in reading aloud. “Okay?”

“Poe,” Kylo says, looking like Poe was the idiot that Kylo just claimed he himself was. “The Darkstaff is an artifact of the Sith. It was destroyed by the Eye.”

“Look, I don’t know the vast history of the Jedi, okay?”

“It’s not that,” Kylo says, waving Poe’s concerns aways like bees. “The Eye of the Sun is safe in the tree.” Kylo looks at Poe expectantly.

“If I’m supposed to be getting something here,” Poe says, “you are mistaken.”

“Force trees, you had one in your backyard, remember?” 

Poe blinks, the memory and Kylo blindsiding him. 

“You would hide things in it, like within its roots that you didn’t want found, remember?”

“Right. Is there a force tree on this planet?” he asks. 

“They’re all force trees, technically. Force infused. The Eye of Light could be here. We just have to find the temple, and the tree should be somewhere nearby.” Kylo smiles, and his face lights up. Poe’s throat closes, he doesn’t know what to say. 

“A two hundred year old temple, Kylo. The woods will have eaten it by now.”

Kylo leans in, eager. Poe feels his heartbeat pick up. He wants it to stop doing that right now, but fears it might stop completely. 

“Not if we do this, Poe. We can, we have to.”

“For Ben?”

“Poe if we find the Eye of Light, we could defeat the First Order.” Poe’s eyes widen. “It won’t matter how many force users there are, because it will amplify the light, it draws the darkness out, that’s what destroyed the Darkstaff in the first place.”

“So we could what, draw the darkness out of the force users?”

“Out of their weapons, not the people themselves. The Darkstaff gave power. It’s still unclear as to what the Eye does. But if we can find it, we may be onto something here.”

 

Poe listens as Kylo reveals what he learned to the group. The path to Cloud Mountain was a switchback, a pilgrimage. Poe grimaces and wonders what the deal with Jedi ruins being on top of tall things is about. But Kylo tells them about the tree, and the disappearance from the universe for five years.

“Our best bet is to find the sacred grove, and perhaps a huge energy surge can leap Ben back where he’s supposed to go.” Kylo slides a look over to Ben.

Ben stays silent, looking down.

“If you want to,” Kylo adds.

Poe looks up at this. The relationship between them was odd, to say the least. But they did get along strangely enough. And the earlier sacrifice Ben made earlier in deference to Kylo, maybe they were like brothers. And Poe was only seeing what he wanted to see. The Ben, and not the Kylo. 

He had forgiven him in words in the cockpit, but not in action. Poe watches as the two exchange a look, like they already have their own language. 

“I might stay,” Ben says soft and low. He doesn’t look at Poe when he says this. Can barely look at Kylo. 

Kylo nods, and then, “If we find the Eye, we can go to Snoke, cut off the head,” he says. He looks at Luke, pleading, even as his face is open with want and a fierceness. “It can be something we use together, rather than one.”

Luke looks thoughtful. Or he might be thinking about tea for all Poe knows, they were in that shop for a really long time. It had taken him a moment to realize that Kylo had left, he was always taking the back of the group. 

“Maybe. We have to meditate on this together, but we will do so as we camp on the mountain.” He looks to Kylo.

“Two standard days,” he says. 

Luke nods. “Then we have quite the hike ahead of us. I suggest rest,” he says, standing up and tucking his hands into his sleeves. Poe has thought that maybe Luke does this to look serene, but there’s always that gleam in his eye that gives him away as a backwater kid finally on an adventure. Kind of ruins the picture.

Luke leaves the room, and the rest of the group look at each other. 

“Another round?” Rey asks, smiling. Her knack for sabacc has been Ben’s downfall. After Kylo showed her how, her instincts and quick thinking her won her hand after hand. Ben couldn’t resist a bet, even if it was in truths, and not in credits. Poe realizes these past few nights that either he’s terrible at sabacc, or the squadron were letting him win. Or maybe they were terrible. He’d get Rey to play with them and see. She’d cream them.

But the final round hadn’t been declared yet. They played until boredom or sleepiness. 

“I’m game,” Ben says, eager to try to beat Rey, or Kylo, who Poe suspected was holding back his card skills. But he didn’t want to say so in front of the others.

Tonight Ben is the dealer. Rey watches carefully as he deals the cards, first going in one direction, then another, until each player had five.

The cards were live, the value ever changing, and Poe’s Bombed Out, but he discards the Queen in hopes of lowering his score. 

He watches as Rey draws two, and fiercely looks at each of them, keeping a close eye on each of their faces. Poe thinks he has a decent one, even if he’s bad at the game, but Ben of the four of them definitely has the worst. He’s constantly squinting, and shifting, and even smiles or frowns at his hand.

Rey just looks perpetually angry.

Kylo probably has the best game face. It’s a mask, but with subtle tells. His eyes always shift to the left when he’s about to draw, but that’s all Poe can pick up. 

Ben calls just as it’s Kylo’s turn, and Ben puts down sixteen. He smirks at Rey. 

“Negative sixteen,” Rey sighs, and Ben laughs, triumphant.

“Twenty four,” Poe says. “Bombed Out.” He throws his cards on the table.

Kylo waits for their attention, and then, a smile. 

“Don’t tell me,” Ben is saying, when Kylo lays down a hand of eighteen. “You’re cheating,” Ben accuses. He crosses his arms. “Using the force or something, how do you know when I’m about to win?”

“You have the worst tells of the table,” Poe says.

Kylo points at Poe and looks at Ben. “That,” he says.

“I have a great game face,” Ben scoffs. Then pauses. “Don’t I?”

“Here’s a free truth for you,” Kylo says, drawing in the cards. “No.” He turns to Rey and waits for his truth.

Poe notices that all her truths are after Jakku, and he wonders how hard a scavenger life must be. 

“I had an x-wing helmet on Jakku,” she offers. “I liked wearing it. It made me feel…important.”

Poe wants to insist that she is, was, important, but Ben says, “I had a stuffed Ewok as a kid, named Woker, because that’s how I pronounced Ewok.”

Kylo frowns. 

Ben leans in. “Did you have one?”

Kylo shakes his head no. “I had a blanket. No name.”

“I had a blanket too,” Poe says. Then, because that’s not enough, says, “And my first kiss was on a boulder overlooking the forest.”

“You would,” Ben grumbles. Poe thinks back to the kiss they shared. It was good. But it wasn’t enough, not for Ben. He wonders if Ben really would stay, even with some misguided loyalty to a Poe in another universe. 

Kylo looks at him, eyes wide. Then Poe remembers, all at once: His first kiss was with Kylo. They were nine and thought they were going to get married. Poe feels his face heat up, and he swallows, Kylo’s eyes on him, his body still.  
His first kiss wasn’t Barden Grey. No, it was an innocent peck of lips on lips, because that’s what their parents did when they said goodbye. It was in the doorway of his room, and he was holding Kylo’s hand, because that’s what they did, and Han was there to pick up Kylo, and Poe leaned in and smacked his lips loudly on Kylo’s. “Bye, dear,” he said then, and their parents laughed as Kylo smiled softly.

Kylo swallows and clears his throat. “Next round?” he asks, sliding the cards to Rey. 

Ben and Rey look between Poe and Kylo, picking up on something that had passed between them both. Poe feels them both distinctly not looking at each other. Kylo ducks his head.

Ben opens his mouth, but Rey elbows him sharply before he can say anything. Poe is beginning to be thankful for that elbow.

 

The hike up starts off slow. 

Luke wakes them all up with a cheerfulness that is not meant to be for the morning, and Ben nudges at Kylo in front of him. Kylo was restless last night, but no new nightmares. No panic attacks. Just an overwhelming amount of heaviness between Kylo and Poe last night. 

The next few rounds Ben could tell that Kylo won because he didn’t want to tell any truths, and Poe kept saying the most inane shit.

It was as fat a lie as the Kessel run in twelve parsecs. But Ben sticks to the back, and Kylo strides ahead like a wampa is on his tail, and Poe makes sure to stay between Luke and Rey. 

Looks like Ben isn’t the only master of denial. 

He wonders what it’ll be like, this new life. If maybe he’ll help the Resistance, or even get back to smuggling, but his universe seems so far away that it seems like it would be impossible to get back. Back to his Poe.

Admiral Dameron, gray at the temples, dark eyes so serious, orbs that reveal the weakness of Ben himself. An upside down reflection, a world he can’t tap into, even though he desperately wants to.

 

 

They reach the third switchback and make camp. Luke pulls his apprentices together so they can talk, or meditate. Whatever Jedi do. 

Poe sits next to him, flops down, really. And nudges him. “Sorry about earlier. Yesterday.” He runs a hand through his hair, and sighs. “I don’t want to say you’re right,” he says. “But I’m not right, either. And that’s not fair to take it out on you.”

Ben shrugs, and looks at him through the gas lamplight. It’s too wet for a fire, but Luke bought this at the local shop yesterday, after tea. The rest of the group are sitting still in a circle, meditating under a tarp, the light rain hitting the heavy cloth in hard taps. Ben and Poe are huddled under a large leaf, which keeps swaying down to drip onto Ben’s foot. His ass is damp, and he’s got the feeling it’s going to stay that way for awhile. Stupid jungle.

“Thanks,” he says, in lieu of anything else. He looks to the group again, “I probably overstepped too.” He grunts. “Sorry.”

“Oh don’t worry about it,” Poe says lightly. Quick, like he’s used to saying it. “I did too.”

There’s a pause. “Well, now what?” Ben asks. Like if they can’t kiss, they can’t talk either? 

“I lied last night, at sabacc,” Poe admits.

“Yeah, everyone could tell,” Ben says, quizzically looking at Poe.

“My first kiss was in my room. It was Kylo,” he says, looking across the way to the trio of Jedi.

“Oh kriff, are you serious?” Ben exclaims. 

Poe is waving at him to shut up, but the group across the way are so focused they don’t even flinch.

“Unbelievable. What, how old were you?”

Poe looks like he wants to shrink in on himself, or is doing a damn good impression of a puffer turtle. “Nine.”

“Chaya’s soul, that is adorable.”

“Shut up,” Poe moans into his hands.

“No, no way. No wonder you two were acting so weird.” 

“We were being very normal,” Poe says, looking like he’s dying as the words are coming out.

Ben laughs. Poe ducks his head and laughs too. 

Ben leans in and touches shoulders with Poe. “Admiral Dameron and I met when we were twenty. He was a lieutenant then.”

“And how did that go?”

“Splendidly!” Ben grins. “Then I realized he was in the military, and he realized I was smuggling spice under his nose. Things were…strained after that.”

“Wow. Okay. But you still like him?”

Ben tilts his head, his cheek twitches up. “We still run into each other sometimes. But usually it’s me on the lam, and him trying not to see me. It makes things weird.”

“Oh I could see that. But you don’t want to go back?” Poe leans back into some wet foliage and leans forward quickly when his back gets soaked. 

“It would be the same thing, me on the run, no home. But here?” Ben shrugs. “I could start fresh.”

“You can start fresh at home too,” Poe says, then raises his hands. “Not that I wouldn’t love you staying here, but what’s really keeping you from home?”

“No home,” Ben says.


	7. Chapter 7

Rey wakes up the next morning, feeling cold, but at least dry. Her whole life was on Jakku, so a jungle like this is vastly different. She makes her way out of the tent in the attempt to not wake anybody, and starts puttering around the campsite. There’s no way to make a fire, nor was there one last night, so she finds a not so wet patch of ground and sits there. 

Last night’s meditation went as well as could be expected. The planet lent itself to them, the force wild and open, flowing through them and to them quickly.

Kylo didn’t look so exhausted afterward. It must be like neural pathways, Rey thinks, like thoughts that are so ingrained and natural to you are hard not to do. Like a game face.

And he doesn’t pull on anger anymore, although he could. He pulls on the calm and the need to focus, and is better for it.

Rey pulls out of her robes the small holovid message sent to her by Finn. She knows what it says, she’s played it so many times. _Hi Rey, It’s Finn, just thinking about you and wishing you were here. I know you’re doing great. Poe is showing me the ropes on the base…_

She misses him. Her first friend. She wishes on some level that she was with him too, but knows that it’s not that easy. She has power that is more than herself, and to waste it, she feels, is a crime. She doesn’t want to stand idly by. So she’s here. 

She draws her knees up and hugs them close. Her life is very different from what it’s supposed to be. She’s not waiting anymore. That brings her some sense of happiness, but she thinks it would be better sometimes if Finn was here too. 

He didn’t want to come. He felt like he had his own issues to work out through the Resistance too.

Rey hears the crunching of boots on jungle floor before she looks up, and Ben sits next to her.

They sit in silence for a bit, listening to the rustles of life around them, most likely swamp womp rats rustling around in the flora. 

“Here,” she says, handing the holovid message disk over to Ben and he clicks it on. “That’s Finn.”

“He seems sweet,” Ben says, looking for a moment then handing it back. 

She clicks it off after one last look. “He is.”

“Would you change yourself for him?” he asks. It’s quiet, thoughtful.

“He wouldn’t want me to.” She looks at him and wonders.

Ben nods, his mouth a flat line. He looks defeated. “Well,” Ben says, getting up and giving her a hand. “We better rouse the troops, before Luke does.”

The day seems interminable. The further up they go, the harder it is to breathe, and the fog that surrounds the mountain brings visibility down to two meters, at the most. It’s a whiteout on either side, and each footfall on the jungle floor sounds encapsulated, like being surrounded. 

“At least it’s not raining,” Ben mutters to Poe. Poe is in his own thoughts today, quiet from last night’s explanation. Ben noticed that Poe still hasn’t talked to Kylo, but dammit it’s not of his business. Poe is an adult, even if he’s not being one right now.

Poe hums in response.

 

It’s still unbelievable. The idea that Poe could find Kylo attractive? He pauses, feeling his chest tighten. Okay, maybe it’s not such a stretch. Poe thought Ben was hot, so what was keeping him from being attracted to Kylo? The scar? The brooding? It had to be one of those, Poe thought, because that’s the only difference that he could really tell the two apart. From the back, the large shoulders would be hunched in on themselves, the head bowed.

Poe watches Kylo’s form as he goes through katras, one slow movement flowing into the next, like a dance, a praise. His body is long and thick, thighs that Poe could…

Shit, he thinks as he lets his head hang. This was not supposed to happen. This wasn’t really happening. Kylo was only a reflection of Ben, and it was Ben that Poe found attractive. Right? But then what the hell was that on the ship, the remembering of their kiss, innocent, but still able to make Poe blush and act like he was kriffing nine again, avoiding Kylo and Ben for the rest of the day. 

Poe thinks back, about when he first had the inkling when he might be attracted to Ben, and it was like it didn’t even start with Ben himself. It was the idea of Ben. Here was his childhood crush all grown up, and he was funny, and handsome, and smart, all the things he was supposed to be. All the things Kylo was supposed to be. Poe was acting out because Kylo wasn’t Ben. And Ben wasn’t Kylo. Although the two had the same frame, they were as similar and as different as brothers. Kylo was also handsome and funny, smart beyond reasoning. He had the same drawl even, when sarcastic, even if it was hidden beneath a million layers. 

Everything that Poe wanted was Kylo, but the parts that he found himself attracted to shone in front of Ben. Ben drew out the best in Kylo, or so it seemed. And Poe wanted to tap into that. Wanted to see how the inner workings of Kylo’s mind were so like his own.

Poe was using Ben, just as Ben had said.

Fuck.

Kylo is still in the middle of his katras, his movements steady and strong, long hair strapped to the top of his head, tendrils wet with sweat hanging around his face. Ben must have put it up, because Kylo hardly ever liked things in his hair. Poe leans against a tree and watches Kylo as he winds down his exercises. Kylo is heaving, oddly, breath coming in gasps, but he holds steady. Then he hears a shuddering thwump. A large rock, not quite a boulder, but still too large to carry, falls not 5 meters away from where Kylo is. 

Poe’s eyes widen. Kylo was holding that up with the force while doing his katras, his poses. He waits for a moment, to be recognized, but Kylo continues to stand with his back to him. Poe is about to move forward when Kylo turns around. 

His face is red from exertion, following down his neck to his chest, and Poe starts to hate that this planet is so hot. He didn’t ask for this. 

Poe clears his throat and says, “Looking good.” Then, realizing how that sounds, winces, and corrects himself. “The exercises, you look — good job.” He nods, and then turns because now he’d like to die wallowing in his own humiliation, thank you.

“Would you like to learn one?” Kylo asks as Poe’s two steps away. 

“I’m not a force user, Kylo,” Poe says, even as he’s turning around. 

“You don’t need to be. More people are force sensitive than you realize.”

“Are you saying I’m force sensitive?”

Kylo shrugs. “It’s a possibility. You are a good pilot.”

“The best,” Poe corrects as he steps into Kylo’s space.

“Spread your arms,” Kylo says. Poe frowns, but does so, feeling silly. 

“Now close your eyes.”

“Oh come on!” Poe says, dropping his arms.

“See, you’re doing great already, questioning authority,” Kylo says dryly. 

Poe huffs a surprised laugh, but closes his eyes and raises his arms to shoulder height. 

“Listen to the forest around you,” Kylo says, sounding distant. “The river nearby, the wind in the trees, feel the heartbeat of the jungle. There is life surrounding you. Do you hear it?”

Poe nods. He can hear the forest, full of life, almost singing. 

“Good. Now what you hear, imagine it as energy. It’s flowing, through and within all things, you, me, the mountain. Open your arms towards that energy.”

Poe frowns. “I don’t know,” he says, hesitant. 

“Open your arms back, draw a half circle with your arms to the front of you, and push that energy towards me.”

Feeling stupid, Poe does it.

“Okay, open your eyes.”

Poe looks at Kylo, right in front of him. “Nothing happened.”

“Yes it did. You changed.”

Poe blinks. “What?”

“How do you feel now?”

“Okay. Better?” he asks, surprised at its truth. 

Kylo smiles softly. “Maybe we’ll make a student out of you after all.”

 

They reach the temple mid day. It’s covered in the ch’hala tree, it’s broken limbs and roots reaching for the ground, cracked walls, moss make up the rest. It has the hum of something ancient, as old as time itself, and there’s the other feeling of being watched.

The fog had cleared up, but there was no one around, and Ben goes out to investigate. There are several overgrown trails. Kylo hadn’t said anything about locals living up here, but it might be possible on the other side of the mountain to ride up, rather than walk. If that was the case, words would be had. 

He hears a footstep entirely too close and whips around, hand on his blaster, ready.

It’s Kylo, and he frowns at Ben. “What are you doing?”

“I just feel we’re being watched, I don’t know.” He brings himself out of the stance, and looks around. The river sounds louder up here, and Ben idly wonders if that means a waterfall is nearby. 

“I’ve felt it too,” Kylo says, eyes looking around the trees, not seeing anything, but he tilts his head, locks eyes with Ben and nods over his shoulder. Come on.

Kylo leads the way, closer to the river, and the rushing sound becomes louder, the mist from the morning still here.

Kylo holds his arm out to motion to wait. But Ben sidles up behind him and looks over Kylo’s shoulder. It’s a man, back to them sitting on a rock in the middle of the river, sloshing water over his body. 

He’s rubbing his arms, and Kylo stiffens, just as Ben steps forward. A jerk, and suddenly he’s being hauled up and up, hanging by his boot. Great. A trap.

Kylo laughs, and the man on the river turns and it’s Admiral Dameron. Ben feels his eyes widen as Dameron shucks worn out pants on and makes his way easily over the river.

“Hey!” Dameron shouts, as he makes it to the riverbank. “What are you-” and stops. He’s still dripping wet, Ben notices insanely, but all the blood is rushing to his head, and can anyone really blame him?

But Dameron’s eyes are locked onto Kylo, who is also checking him out.

Oh no. What if? 

But then Dameron’s attention is pulled to his prize, Ben. 

“Catch of the day,” Ben says, voice cracking.

Dameron’s face is pulled into a flat line. 

Naturally. The interest and curiousity Dameron has with Kylo is gone the instant he sees Ben.

Dameron sighs. Goes over to behind the tree and tugs on something, and the ground is rushing up to meet him, but Kylo catches him before he slams face first into the dirt.

“How did you get here?” Dameron asks, looking at the two of them. “And who’s this?”

“We’re not sure,” Ben says, brushing off leaves. “And this is Kylo, the other me. The force me.”

“You-” Dameron looks between the two of them. “You have the force?” he asks, almost quietly. 

Kylo shrugs, and Dameron leans in to study him. 

Kriff. Ben turns Poe down in some self sacrificing move, and then Kylo gets Dameron, too. He kicks his boot in the dirt.

Kylo leans back. “Come on,” he says. “There’s someone else you should meet,” Kylo says.

Dameron grabs his stuff, a pack, and not much else, and follows them.

“How did you get here?” Ben asks. Dameron is still watching Kylo openly. 

“Not sure,” he says after a second. “But I knew that I needed to stick around. Found the outpost at the bottom of the mountain, and got some information. When I learned there was a Resistance, and the New Republic had fallen, I knew something was up, so I headed back up here. Thought maybe I could figure something out in the ruins.” Dameron looks at Ben. “And you?” he asks, all too polite. 

Ben shrugs. “I just showed up, and there he was.” He waves at Kylo. “Wait, when did you show up here?”

Dameron squints. “Five days ago.”

Four standard days after Ben showed up. Ben looks over, sees that Dameron still doesn’t have his shirt on. His pack is probably rubbing him raw. He gestures to the strap, “Want me to hold that, while you…” 

Dameron shrugs off his pack and hands it to Ben. It’s heavier than he thought it would be, but he’s also wondering where or even how the Admiral got all this stuff in five days time.

Dameron opens the pack up and digs in for a shirt which he pulls over his head and grabs the pack back, all smooth motions. “Thanks,” he says after a minute.

Ben swallows his reply, and watches as Dameron picks up speed to join Kylo.

 

Poe looks at the table around him. It was strange enough to see that there was a Kylo and a Ben Solo, but that they were two seperate people. And then to see himself, well, a version of himself, across the table. Commander Dameron, however, was a completely different species from Poe, as far as he was concerned. It helped that Dameron had the beard, the inexplicable gray at his temples, and hardly ever smiled. 

“So you came through the wormhole to tell us, don’t?”

Dameron doesn’t repeat himself, just stares at Poe. It’s a weird feeling, and he wonders if this is what’s been bothering Kylo the past couple of standard weeks. The idea that there’s some version of you that so not you, like you made all the mistakes, and this is the perfect one, well, Poe feels a little bad for thinking it, but thinks this is punishment enough. 

Ben is uncharacteristically silent. He looks like he’s biting on everything that’s flying through his head, and sits stock still. Kylo, to Poe’s left, however, is making the biggest stink face at Dameron Poe has ever seen. Kylo runs towards the childish, his emotions tend to run wild, after all, but this is a little much. He represses the urge to tell him to calm down, because he knows how well that will go over. 

“He’s telling us that Ben,” Kylo says, shifting his glare over to the subject of the matter, “has been withholding information regarding the artifact.”

Ben rolls his eyes, and Dameron raises his brows, impressed. “I’d like to say I’m surprised,” Dameron finally says, “that your doppelganger could be so cunning, but then again, for someone who likes to play like an idiot, you might have picked up a few things along the years.”

Ouch. Ben glares, but says nothing. Poe wants to speak up in Ben’s defense. He’s got a lot of bravado, but in the end is a good guy. 

“Blow me,” Kylo says, seemingly out of nowhere. 

Ben looks smug at this, and Poe is shocked. Dameron, looks even more unpleased, and Poe didn’t think that was possible.

“This whole time you’ve been looking down your nose at us, when you’re just as bad. Of course we don’t want to mess with an alternate universe, this one’s fucked up as it is. And you risk life and the space time continuum to tell us not to do what you just did?” Kylo leans forward, “Blow me,” he repeats, and Poe feels like this is life day and his birthday rolled into one.

“What would you know?” Dameron hisses, and oh no, Kylo has found the secret to get him to do something other than be condescending, but Poe has a bad feeling about this.

“I know I’m the most powerful force user bar one asshole that we’re currently trying to take down, and the artifact can help us take this fucker down, but you want to shove it back in some tree so you and your boyfriend can go home.” Kylo lets this sink in. 

Poe feels his jaw slacken in the want to gape. Looks like Ben has been a bad influence on Kylo, because Poe has never heard anything like that come out of his mouth before. He turns to Ben for guidance, but Ben’s face is twisted up somewhere between mortified, proud, and laughter. 

“Look,” Ben says, before either can draw blood, “We’ve got to figure out the best way to solve this, for both of our galaxies. Dameron needs to get home, and we need you guys to figure out the Eye.”

Kylo looks like he still wouldn’t trust Dameron with this mission, and Dameron keeps looking at Kylo, like there’s something more. 

Poe sits up. Why would the Admiral be so interested in Kylo? It’s not like… Poe sees it. Dameron is doing the same thing he was. Well, Poe is not going to watch himself make the same mistake twice, at least if he can help it. 

That night the temple feels cold, the wind whipping around the walls and the sky overhead clear for once. 

Poe makes sure he blocks Dameron from Kylo, but he’s only doing it out of a sense of charitableness to his other self. Dameron doesn’t look like the kind of guy that would appreciate being made a fool of.

Not that that’s what happened with him and Ben. No, that was him trying to- trying to… Poe shuts his eyes and remembers the clearing earlier with Kylo, the way he was gentle and kind, but funny. Becoming more sure of himself. Poe thinks of the way Kylo’s body moved through the katras, slow and sure, and all Poe can think about is how long and thick Kylo’s legs are. How they might feel wrapped around his waist. 

He huffs and turns on his side. It’s not going to do any good getting worked up, because there’s no way he’s going to be able to take care of it. At least not tonight, he thinks, and wants to hit himself in the face because his body is trapped with a teenage mind, and he has to wait it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been a while, hasn't it my lovelies? But look, two chapters. Enjoy.


	8. Chapter 8

Poe turns over again, and realizes that somehow he had fallen asleep. But now the night was quiet, and Kylo was missing. Poe frowns, and sits up. They are sleeping in what must have been the great hall, surrounding tables, and Poe forces his eyes to adjust to the dark. The silhouettes are all the same, and Poe scoots out of his bedroll. 

He has no business going after Kylo, except to maybe lend a helping hand in meditation, or wondering if Kylo is having another episode like on the ship. But he would have heard, right? Poe’s on his feet when he sees that Admiral Dameron is missing too.

Hell no, Poe thinks, and as quickly and quietly as he can, steps out of the hall and outside. It’s a strange concept, the walls that are only half there, but the indication is that there are set spaces for everything. The two moons shine dully down, one purple, and the other brown. They don’t lend much light, but Poe tries to will himself into seeing the jungle floor, and scans around to see nothing. Kylo isn’t here.

Poe sighs. What am I doing? He asks, and continues down the path to the sacred grove. I can be in bed, he thinks, but his feet carry him toward the grove.

The trees can feel him, Rey told him. They feel the vibrations. Poe closes his eyes and feeling ridiculous, holds his arms out. He listens to the river, to the wind rustling leaves and vines together. He opens them, but doesn’t feel any better. Huh.

But he reaches the grove and there, sitting in front of the heart tree, is Kylo. 

Admiral Dameron is still missing, but Poe will figure that out later. 

The tree glows on it’s own, reminding Poe of the force tree on Yavin IV. How it would feel, cool and warm in turns, how he’d hide all those mementos of his childhood in it. 

The heart tree is large, larger than most of the grove, and Poe remembers that Kylo told them it was one tree, and this is the one that started it all.

He steps up behind where Kylo is sitting, and sits down behind him. 

Kylo sits still, his breath even, and it seems like the tree blooms in response, a humming that Poe can feel in his chest.

The tree glows red for a moment, then yellow, before stopping, and it’s usual striations of color throb from its center.

Kylo turns, and sees Poe. Of course he knew that Poe was there the whole time. Probably could sense him walking out into the forest and coming near.

Kylo doesn’t say anything, but faces back to the tree.

“You don’t like Admiral Dameron,” Kylo says, apropos of nothing.

“Yeah, he’s kind of an asshole,” he says, and starts to ask about the tree. Stops. Something about that seems wrong right now. In this moment, he should follow Kylo’s lead. 

He looks down to the ground, dead leaves beneath him. He wonders what this place would have been like before the great Jedi Purge. 

Kylo turns, and there’s a shrewd look on his face that Poe may have seen before, but now it makes his pulse ratchet up.

“There’s something behind that,” he says.

“No, I think he’s all on the surface. Just a dick.” Poe waves at his face. 

Kylo scoots closer, and the moons somehow seem brighter in this one moment. 

“Ben’s a dick too,” Kylo says, trying to dig information out of him. Poe’s eyes widen, and if this was how the Kylo Ren of old decided to get information rather than forcing it out of him, Poe wouldn’t have lasted long. 

Poe swallows, his throat dry. “Yeah, but this guy, definitely wouldn’t want to hang out with him, you know?” Good, real subtle, Poe.

Kylo hums, and scoots even closer. Their knees touch. 

Kriffing hell. Poe really is a teenager again.

Kylo’s eyes lock onto Poe’s. “I don’t think he’s that bad,” Kylo says, almost challenging.

Poe can’t help it, a snarl comes onto his face. “Stay away from him,” he warns, and immediately regrets saying anything, the burst of anger over instantly.

But Kylo just smirks. And places his hands on Poe’s knees. He’s lifting himself up, and closer, signaling his every fucking move, and Poe is locked between wanting Kylo to just do it already, and have this almost last forever, watch Kylo be assured of himself, of this.

Kylo looks at Poe’s lips and tilts his head, wanting, warning. He looks up into Poe’s eyes to make sure that this is okay.

Poe slowly reaches up and pushes his hand into that hair, and brings him in. 

Kylo’s lips are soft, plush even. They tilt faces, and Poe gently brushes his lips back and forth over Kylo’s. He grips Kylo’s hair harder, and his other hand comes up to Kylo’s long throat. The smooth line of his skin, the bumps of the moles that are scattered everywhere like stars on a blanket. 

Kylo opens his mouth and runs his tongue over Poe’s lips, a tiny lick. Poe opens his mouth in kind, and tries to press closer, and that makes Kylo’s hands slide further up Poe’s thighs. 

Poe feels like his breath is gone, but he doesn’t want to stop, Kylo slowly going over his teeth and discovering Poe’s mouth, Poe’s tongue stroking along Kylo’s, encouraging. His breath is shaky, his whole body is shaky and he pulls back, and Kylo immediately backs off, somehow not touching Poe anymore, and how did he get so far away? 

Poe gets up on his knees and reaches for Kylo, pulling him back in. Kylo comes back in a rush, and this time it’s all hard, smashed teeth, and Poe is making his way across Kylo’s face, saying it’s okay, it’s okay, and kissing that scar, the thing that could have killed him, but brought him to life instead. 

Kylo ducks his head into Poe’s neck and breathes an unsteady sigh. 

Poe grasps him tighter to himself, fingers clasped to Kylo’s back. 

Which is when he hears a throat clearing.

Poe grips Kylo’s arms, and pulls back, and standing in the grove is none other than Admiral Dameron. Kylo leans back onto his knees again, and waits for Poe to get up. 

Poe rises and gives a hand to Kylo to help him up. 

“I’ll be damned,” Dameron says. “I knew something was up, but didn’t know it was anything like this.”

Poe wants him to shut his stupid mouth, but at the same time, can’t find any real reason to be mad at him. “Just stepped in, did you?”

“Heard people talking,” Dameron says, leaning on a tree. The hardwood changes color with the pressure. 

“Okay, so there’s no need for you to stick around,” Poe says.

Dameron smirks, but it doesn’t really reach his eyes. 

Poe wonders what kind of half life Dameron lives.

“No, there isn’t, is there?” Dameron stands up, gives Kylo a once over and steps through the grove past them back to the temple ruins. 

“Wait,” Kylo says.

Poe wants to hiss at Kylo to ask what the hell he’s doing, but the mood is pretty much gone anyway. The Admiral is better than a cold fresher. 

“Why were you out here?” Kylo asks, and wait, that’s a good question.

“Yeah,” Poe adds, totally helping this conversation along.

“Couldn’t sleep. Thought maybe I’d take a walk,” Dameron says.

Kylo looks at Dameron deeply. There’s something there, something that Poe is missing, but the Admiral seems open and interested in Kylo, so maybe they can get some answers. Like how the hell did the universe spit him out three days after Ben arrived, and why he’s so adamant that no one get the Eye out of the heart tree. Kylo tilts his head. “To the river?” 

Dameron nods, a look of confusion crossing his face.

“I’ll go with you,” Kylo says, and Poe almost protests, because what is happening? But then Kylo turns to him and gently presses his lips against Poe’s, lingering for a moment there. He pulls back reluctantly, and smiles. “I’ll be okay.” His smile turns devious then, and he leans in for another kiss.

Poe is okay with this. 

 

The river is calm, but rushing near the bottom, deceiving at the top where they are.

“You’re very different from Solo,” Dameron says.

Kylo raises an eyebrow. Dameron doesn’t know him, in any way. Who’s to say that he’s any different, aside from the scar on his face?

“Perhaps,” he says, because in another galaxy Admiral Dameron has it out for Ben Solo. If it was Kylo in that world, would it be the same as this one? There’s no point to what ifs of the past, but it’s tempting to examine and try to find the cracks in the mirror.

Dameron stops suddenly. 

Kylo slows his steps to still.

“You told me that I shouldn’t have done what I did. Come here.” Dameron has his hands behind his back, and his head is tilted in such a manner as if to start an interrogation.

“I said that you shouldn’t lord it over us that we were going to Ben back. When you were going to do the same thing.”

“You can tell that with the force?” Dameron looks at him askance.

“No, I can tell by your actions. I can read you very easily, I’m familiar with the translation.” Kylo takes a step towards Dameron.

“Admiral, you weigh a lot on the bars on your uniform. They don’t mean anything here.”

“Yeah, I heard,” Dameron says. He rubs the back of his neck, and turns to the temple, makes to leave. 

Kylo wants to reach out and stop him. He taps his arm instead. “That doesn’t mean that you can’t have a say. Just that it doesn’t mean much, except to Ben.”

Dameron scoffs. “Hardly anything I do means much to that man.”

“You put too much on your career and not enough on others,” Kylo says slowly. This, this is the difference between Poe and the Admiral. Poe fought for others, it was his very core. The Admiral fought for himself. 

“My career is all I’ve ever had.”

“But not now,” Kylo says.

Dameron steps closer. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Kylo leans down. “I thought I didn’t it, either. But now I can see you for what you are: half a man, half of a being.”

Dameron scowls. His scruff is up. “And what makes me whole? Ben?”

“You said it, not me,” Kylo smirks, standing up straight. Dameron is in his space. If this was Poe, Kylo would be oh so careful. But it’s not. It’s barely even a reflection, just someone who lost themselves in a dream.

Kylo was that too. But he’s gotten the hang of reality now. And it has a sense of humor.

“Forget it,” Dameron is saying. “I thought maybe I could talk to you, but forget it.” He throws his arms up and starts to head back to the temple.

“Why me, why someone you barely know?” Kylo asks.

Dameron doesn’t say anything, just keeps walking, but it’s easy enough for Kylo’s long stride to reach him and keep pace.

“Admiral, for someone who likes to address things head on, you seem to be avoiding the issue.”

“The Darkstaff is dangerous. I can’t let you-” Dameron stops and sighs. “When Ben left, I thought he was gone for good. I thought the First Order had ended him, and I didn’t know what to do. I took leave, and followed his path, to find where he disappeared. He was at Cularin, I could tell that much, but he’d just vanished.” He runs a hand over his face. “And then I remembered, he was after an artifact. I told him not to, to not mess with the First Order, but now, the deadline is past due.”

Dameron looks at Kylo. “They’re on Cularin, and they’re looking for the Darkstaff.”

“And it wasn’t destroyed in your universe?”

Dameron shrugs. “Who’s to say? There’s nothing written about it either way. The Darkstaff in this galaxy had enough power to send the whole planet ten years into the future, what’s stopping it from creating a rift in the time space continuum?”

“But you don’t know that. What if it was the Eye?”

“Why would it send us here then? How do we get back?”

“Maybe it’s a cosmic lesson,” Kylo says, following Dameron’s thoughts. “Or maybe it’s First Order business. But we will get you home.”

When Kylo comes back into the temple, he stops what he’s doing and looks at Poe. Poe, who growled at him, when Kylo pried him with information about Dameron. The admiral that looked to him for answers, for truth, when he created a world that meant no one should trust him. But Dameron did, somehow. Kylo couldn’t help but think that it was because Kylo looked exactly like Ben. Or Ben like him. Either way, Kylo knew that Admiral Dameron was searching for comfort for the wrong reasons in the wrong person. He didn’t act surprised when he came across Kylo and Poe in the grove, and seemed almost…not jealous, but something. Something Kylo couldn’t quite put his finger on. 

But to think that Kylo might know what Ben didn’t was absurd. Clearly there were some issues in that relationship. But there were some issues in all of his, so he really didn’t have room to talk. 

The dawn was already stretching it’s fingers across the sky, and it came dark and gray, and the rain that would always come with it. The relief of yesterday was brief but enjoyed. And now it was back to the usual weather. 

The dangling roots of the ch’hala trees drip water and Kylo watches as the rustling of the group vibrates sensitive roots, and the colors flush ever so slightly.

He was unsure most times, but here, in this moment, he was peaceful.

The moment didn’t last long, as Ben starts the day with grumbling. “I’m sick of being wet, isn’t there something we can do?”

Kylo shucks off his Jedi robe, water resistant at least and throws it at Ben.

“Ugh, it smells like you.”

“Stop complaining, we’re all getting wet,” Rey says.

“And the sooner we get the Eye, we can get off of this planet. Besides,” Luke says, face up to the sky, squinting as the rain drops down onto his face, “It’s not as bad as some places I’ve been.”

That was easy enough for a hydro farm boy grown Jedi. Kylo looks over to Ben who is pulling on the robe, looking altogether like a kid in their dad’s jacket.

Kylo swallows, and starts out towards the grove again.

 

The tree is still the same as it’s been, glowing brighter, and so much bigger than the others.

“What now?” Poe asks. It’s something they’re all wondering. How could they get an artifact out of the tree?

“We’ll have to use the force,” Luke says.

They don’t look convinced, but Luke sighs and raises his arms out to the heart tree, it’s glowing thrum seemingly quiet in the pouring rain.

Kylo and Rey join, trying to find the artifact, the force leaden thing within the tree, and at first it seems like there’s nothing, but then, there, and the tree opens up, after all three strain, and the tree releases the artifact. It floats, and Luke reaches out and grabs it, takes it in hand.

The Eye is like nothing he’s ever seen before, at least with the force. It seems very ordinary, a wooden stick of ch’hala, and further up, fossilized into a glowing mix of amber and stoned wood. It’s beautiful in it’s ordinariness.

There’s a moment of silence as they all look at it, this thing that has brought them all here, together even from a different galaxy.

They wait, and Luke says, “Well, this is it.” 

Rey waits for the object to start lashing out, doing something terrible, but it lays still in Luke’s hands. Like it didn’t do anything. She can tell it’s filled with the force, it’s lifelessness absorbed with it, and it feels unnatural and perfectly normal at the same time. A conundrum. 

The time was now, and Ben looked at everyone standing around him. He didn’t feel like going home just yet. He looks to the admiral, and he shakes his head. There’s still more to do here.

“Let’s go,” Ben says, and they start the hike down to the ship.

The switchbacks are easier to go down than up, and it takes them a few hours less than the way up. The ship is still as they left it, and they reach it way past nightfall. Everyone wants to make a rush for the fresher, and find the towels they so desperately need, but Ben lets Kylo go first. There are only two.

Afterward, they all sit in the commons and try to plan what they’ll be doing next. 

“We have to go cut the head off the snake,” Luke says. “It’s time to face ourselves and our fears,” he says, looking at Kylo. “Snoke is leading the First Order, and without him, it will slowly crumble. It is not a fight that will be won easily, but a battle that we have to choose.” He looks around the table at each person. “For the Resistance, for the freedom of the galaxy, we must fight.”

There’s a silence after that, a quietness that looms over them all. What they all feared was here, but even in that fear was the knowledge that they had to do this. There was no turning away now.


	9. Chapter 9

With the dawn, the gangway is pulled up and Poe punches in the coordinates to the Resistance base. They don’t have a clue as to where Snoke might be, but they know that they’re going to need some help. 

Which brings us in to Kylo. Kylo, who knows he’s the link to Snoke, and in order to open up that link, has to seem like he wants to come back. 

Wants to go back to the dark side. The idea nearly sends him in a panic, because if he’s honest at all, he doesn’t know that he won’t. That he’ll be able to resist, to say no, to not give in to such power. 

All these months he’s felt like a shell, empty of meat, and if confronted with the dark, with Snoke, it’s not like he can go and meditate it away. Or guilt himself into staying good.

He’s never really felt the light, or the true dark, but he knows the force, how it flows, and it comes so much easier when he’s angry. Fearful. 

And that’s what scares him. He’s already in that state, full of emotions he cannot control, and in that fear to protect what he’s grown so much for, to hide his other self, the family he has, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. Because he knows that he’d do anything to protect them.

And now he has to go back, and hope that it’s his own fear that keeps him from turning once more into the earlier mess.

Before they reach base, Kylo shucks out of his Jedi robes and finds another flight suit on board. It’s a little too short for him, the legs tight and riding high, almost uncomfortably so, but he doesn’t dare step onto the base as an unknown Jedi. There would be too much attention. Which makes him think of Ben. Kylo rushes out of the room to find Ben and Poe talking. 

He waits for the rush of jealousy to hit him, but Poe looks at him, and his face lights up. It’s clear that Poe is trying not to laugh at him, but Ben finishes the job, and bursts out laughing. “Look at you, fly boy,” he drawls.

Kylo can already feel his eyes rolling, “We need to figure out how to hide you and the admiral on the base.”

“Helmets?” Poe asks, sounding unsure even as the words leave his mouth.

“Yes, Poe, helmets. We’ll walk around in helmets the whole time, no one will tell that I’m Kylo’s double with a hat on.”

“Take it easy, Ben,” Poe says, affronted.

“We may have to sneak you two onto the base and keep you hidden for the meantime,” Kylo says.

“Oh come on. What’s the big deal? We just look alike. Just say we’re twins.”

“I think my mom would’ve mentioned having twins. What purpose would that serve? We can’t have you dallying about on base,” and Kylo sees that Poe is mouthing the words ‘dallying about’, “because you look like me, and I’m the guy who killed almost everyone.”

Ben holds his hands up. “Take it easy, buddy.”

“No, Kylo’s right, we’re going to have to hide you guys.” We can give you comms, but the fact is that everyone would know if I had a twin,” Poe says. “Everyone is in everyone’s business on the base. When we’re not fighting we’re gossiping.” Poe shrugs. 

“So you’re keeping us on the ship.” Ben says this flatly, glaring.

“Pretty much,” Poe says. “I can tell the admiral if you want,” he adds.

Ben sighs, crosses his arms. “No, no point, I’ll do it,” he says, and shoulders past them. 

Kylo and Poe watch him leave and turn to each other. 

“Can we talk?” Kylo asks, rubbing the back of his neck. 

Poe nods, and gestures behind him to the cockpit. They both walk in and Poe shuts the door. He sits in the captains chair, and watches as Kylo tries to adjust his long body into the navigator’s seat. “What is it?”

“When we go on base,” Kylo says, looking out the transparasteel to the stars zooming by them, “I’m going to have to start contacting Snoke again.”

Poe’s eyes widen. “Why?” he asks, even as he knows why. 

“Because that’s the only way we can know where he is. He’ll talk to me, even if he thinks it’s a trap.” Kylo looks at Poe, the dim lights of the cockpit soft on his face. “But I don’t know if I can stop from going back.” He swallows. “To the dark side.”

“Yes, you can,” Poe says, steady, willing it. “You’re strong, Kylo. Stronger than I could ever be,” Kylo starts shaking his head, “No, it’s true. I might be brave, but you’re strong. You always were. And I-” Poe sighs. “I know this is no cake walk, but we can do this.” He reaches out for Kylo’s hand, desperate for something to hold. “You’re not alone.”

Kylo looks at Poe’s hand holding his, like it’s alien. “We barely know each other Poe. I wanted to talk to you, because I know this,” he waves his other hand, “whatever we have, it’s new.”

Poe blinks, but smiles at him. Kylo furrows his brow.

“I thought you remembered, that night at sabacc,” Poe says. “Kylo, you were my first kiss. This has been going on for longer than I can remember.” He tugs at the hand, and Kylo swivels his chair to pull closer to Poe, their knees knocking against each other’s. “I know we just picked this back up again, but what we have, it feels right. It feels like home.”

Kylo looks at him through dark lashes. “I don’t want to lose you, Poe, but I’m so afraid. Afraid that he’ll find the weakness in me, find you, and I don’t know what I’d do…”

“That’s good,” Poe says, fervent. “If the weakness you have is someone else, Kylo, no one is strong enough for that.”

Kylo’s lids flutter in an eye roll. “You’re not helping.”

“No, listen.” Poe feels like he’s so far away, so he scoots to the edge of his chair and holds onto Kylo’s hands like lifelines. “My weakness is my squad. My friends. Now it’s you too. Kylo, you’re feeling what everyone else does, we just don’t talk about it.

“And it’s good that you are. You don’t bottle it up anymore, Kylo. You used to, and that was toxic. But now you’re healing.”

Kylo licks his lips. “You think that I have a chance against him? That I won’t just go back? What if-”

Poe puts a hand on Kylo’s face, stopping him. “There’s a lot you need to talk about, probably with someone who won’t go on a crusade trying to kill everyone who ever wronged you, but for now, know that I’m with you.” Poe leans forward and brushes his lips gently against Kylo’s.

There’s a moment’s pause, but Kylo turns his head and leans in to meet Poe, and their lips move against the others, slow and paced, Poe’s tongue gliding over Kylo’s teeth, the tip reaching for Kylo’s tongue. 

Kylo leans back, and Poe lets out an embarrassing whine.

Kylo smiles, quick but sure, and that lopsided smile does things to Poe that Ben’s smile never could. He leans back more, and Poe is basically making grabby hands at him when he sees what’s happening. Kylo is tugging at the zipper of the flight suit, and pulling it off, and Poe can barely believe it. “Are you serious?” he asks.

Kylo smirks as he pulls his arms out of the sleeves, a shirt underneath that he keeps on. “We’re not going to do it in the cockpit, Poe,” he says, almost laughing.

Poe groans. “But you, I’m, please?”

“But I am going to suck you off, I just need more flexibility than the jumpsuit allows.”

Poe practically falls back into the seat and moans. “Stars, yes.”

Kylo doesn’t laugh, but Poe can tell it’s a near thing. Kylo swivels his chair out and gets up to get back down on his knees. 

Kylo leans down and nuzzles at Poe’s crotch. It’s cramped in the cockpit, so there’s hardly any room for this in the captain’s chair. But Kylo grabs Poe’s hips and just goes for it, rubbing his face on the outline of Poe’s cock, the member already straining against Poe’s clothes.

Kylo breathes hot and heavy through the cloth, and Poe is desperate to have Kylo in his lap, desperate to have him where he is, and he has no idea where to put his hands, so he slowly, shaking, pushes them into Kylo’s hair. He doesn’t pull, but strokes, and feels the silken mass run through his fingers, soft and wavy. Maybe if he keeps focused on Kylo’s hair, he won’t be so distracted by his mouth.

But then Kylo’s hands are working at his pants, unbuckling and unzipping and tugging down, and it seems like maybe Kylo’s had enough foreplay too, because he looks up, and Poe lifts up his hips as the pants come down, and his cock is there to greet them both. Poe’s somewhere between embarrassed and excited. The excited part is obvious. 

But then Kylo stops looking at Poe’s face and becomes focused again on Poe’s cock. Long slow licks up and down, stopping at the head to suckle, dragging his teeth ever so lightly against the glands underneath the head. Poe moans and cups the back of Kylo’s head, not pulling, and biting his bottom lip.

Kylo keeps at it, doesn’t stop. Sucking kisses along Poe’s length, gentle and then hard, and then whatever his mouth can’t reach, his hand gently strokes.

Poe can tell he’s saying something, probably directions, but he doesn’t want to add himself to the list of people who tell Kylo what to do, so he tries to stop, and ends up making a horrifying gurgling groan and slaps his hand over his mouth, muffling anything that might come out.

Kylo stops, and brings his head up, a long string of spit connecting his mouth to Poe’s dick, and Kylo looks puzzled. “Why’d you stop?” he asks.

“Kylo I don’t know what’s coming out of my mouth,” Poe hisses. “Did you not hear me?”

Kylo smiles, and Poe’s cock twitches, the fiend.

“Yeah, that was weird.” He starts rubbing Poe’s length again, slowly. “But I liked it. Is that okay?” he asks.

Poe nods, and watches as Kylo waits for something to happen on Poe’s face, until he’s satisfied with some answer he finds there, and goes back at it.

So Poe talks. He might be saying any number of things, but mostly _yes_ and please, and a combination of the both. 

Kylo keeps at it until finally, fucking finally his mouth slips over the top of Poe’s dick, and Kylo’s head goes down slowly, and all Poe can do is gasp and gasp because Kylo is not stopping until the full of him is in his mouth. Kylo’s nose touches the base, and he chokes a little as Kylo nuzzles into the hair there.

Kylo pulls back up quickly and coughs. 

“You okay?” Poe asks, hands hovering as Kylo wipes his mouth of excess spit. 

“Yeah,” Kylo says, and looks at Poe for a moment before leaning in and kissing him quickly on the cheek, and then going back down to his previous activity.

His head goes back down and takes Poe in his mouth and bobs up and down. But Poe can’t stand it anymore and pulls his head up, and Kylo’s long body slides over his, and his mouth is obscenely wet, and Poe can’t help but kiss it. Kylo leans into it, one hand still on Poe’s dick, sliding up and down, faster and faster, and Kylo pulls back from kissing Poe and watches as Poe comes, long white streaks landing on Poe’s chest, Kylo’s hand, and even getting on Kylo’s chin. 

Kylo looks a little miffed.

Poe is about to ask what he expected to happen, but then Kylo whines, “I wanted to swallow,” and Poe feels like he might pass out.

 

Ben doesn’t go to the admiral right away. In fact, he wants to put this conversation off until the last minute if possible. He sits in the commons and waits for an opportunity, but it doesn’t seem to come until sabacc that night. No one has hit true sabacc, and no one has a fool’s array either, so the game seems interminable.

But for as bad as Poe is at the game, Dameron seems even better, once Rey goaded him into it. And he won the first two rounds. Which was fine, as far as he was concerned, because the temptation of hearing any truths from Dameron is almost too much.

They go around the table again, and Ben spills the beans: “We have to stay on the ship,” he says, gathering up the cards. 

What he expected was an outburst. What he got was a shrug. “I figured as much,” Dameron says.

“Seriously?” Ben asks. But Poe is charging ahead with his truth, something about his droid and a modification, and Rey inquires after the BB unit.

“It’s fine,” Poe says, smiling. Proud, like a dad.

Ben is shuffling the cards for the next round when Kylo drops down his truth: “I had the biggest crush on Poe growing up.” Cool as anything, like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. 

Ben can feel the cards slip from his fingers onto the table at this. He whips his head to Poe, who is ducking his head and blushing. Oh kriff. Didn’t Poe?

Poe lightly kicks Kylo. “The feeling was mutual.”

“What is going on?” Ben blurts out. Because really. Not a full cycle ago, these two were avoiding each other; painfully. 

“You didn’t know about this?” Dameron asks, gesturing between Kylo and Poe. “I found them night before last making out in the sacred grove.” Old news, Dameron doesn’t say, but Ben’s mouth is still open in shock. He looks to Rey for some semblance of fellowship in shock, but she’s beaming.

Frig. “Rey, your truth?” Ben asks, trying to move on.

“I flew the Millennium Falcon,” she says.

“Wait, what?” Ben asks. The old girl was a rust bucket, but she apparently knew how to get around.

“When I got off Jakku,” Rey says. “It was always there for as long as I could remember, but I didn’t know what ship it was, or whose it was.”

Kylo looks down, as he always does when the subject veers into Han Solo territory.

“Next round, and I will win,” Ben says, and he deals the cards out. 

Dameron, unlike Poe, has an excellent game face. Then again, Ben thinks that Dameron has an excellent face in general. 

He gets negative twenty, which is as close as he’s ever gotten, and he calls as soon as he can. 

But Kylo has positive twenty one. 

“Come on!” Ben shouts, as Rey positively cackles. “You have to be using the force,” Ben accuses, and Kylo smirks at him.

“It’s not like we can turn it off,” he says.

Ben throws his hand on the table and crosses his arms. “Fine. I smuggled spice when I was twenty three.” After Han had died. Han had him dabble in some illegal and dangerous things, but never spice. Chewie wouldn’t let them.

No one says anything. 

 

With an extra soul on board, the space becomes tight. Kylo and the admiral both move to sleep on the floor, but Poe shoves Kylo in his bed and heads to the cockpit. Kylo rolls around a bit and goes into a restless sleep. They are one night’s away from the base. 

Dameron lies on the floor and props his head on his arm.

“Want a pillow?” Ben asks, unsure.

“I’ve slept on worse,” Dameron says. Ben’s not sure how that’s possible, but whatever. He offered. He turns his back to the room, and listens to the sounds of shallow breathing.

Try as he does, Ben cannot sleep. They will stay at the base for as long as it takes, and Kylo looks like he might burst, so probably sooner rather than later. Ben doesn’t believe in any greater deity, but he sort of wishes he did, so he might pray for Kylo’s sake. 

It’s strange, he thinks. He’s never had someone as close as Kylo, someone who knows the insides of him and still thinks that they are worse. That whatever wrong they’ve done, it’s no comparison. Ben doesn’t know all of what Kylo’s done. Knows that Kylo killed Han. Knows that he’s killed others, innocents and younglings. 

Knows he emulated Vader, and still struggles with the emotions raging inside him. All because of the force. Ben is emotional too, but never bothers to smother it. 

Kylo’s forced to.

Ben sighs, feeling like hours have passed, and he doesn’t have a chrono on him, so it’s hard to tell anyway. He rolls over to face the room. Dameron is lying on his back, the glint of his eyes dim in the room. 

“Pillow offer still stands,” Ben says, not knowing when to stop.

Dameron slowly blinks and turns his head to him. “No, thank you,” he says after a minute.

“Fine.” Ben snuffles into his pillow to make sure that Dameron knows the comfort he’s missing out on.


	10. Chapter 10

Poe is glad to be back on base. Judging by the way Rey rushed off to find Finn, she is too. Luke and Kylo follow him to the general’s office, the Eye safe on the ship with Admiral Dameron and Ben.

Poe is glad there’s going to be a break from those two. It was too much last night, and Poe wonders how Rey and Luke managed with him and Kylo. Kylo, who is back in the flight suit, and Poe has to focus on his fingernails digging into his palm as to not get distracted from memories of yesterday.

He nods at the people around him, short and curt. He’s on a mission, as much as he wants to know how his team is.

Luke had commed ahead, so Poe knocks on the door and it hisses open. 

General Leia is standing at her desk, but she rushes to hug her family. Poe steps out of the way. She’s holding Luke and Kylo, her tiny frame looks dwarfed by the two of them. 

Kylo steps back after a minute. Luke follows suit, and Leia smiles. “I’m so glad to see you both,” she says.

Luke smiles, and Kylo nods. 

“We have plenty of time to catch up tonight,” Luke says. “But for now, we need to talk about this artifact.”

Leia’s face switches back into business, but there’s still a happy gleam in her eye, a vigor in her stance. Poe hasn’t realized how tired she had looked. But now, here with her family, she is renewed.

 

Ben can’t go to the cockpit in case there’s a chance he might be spied on. So that leaves the other rooms on the ship, but Ben feels cooped up already, and it’s been an hour. Dameron is probably watching the Eye, but Ben is dead bored.

He wanders around on board, and all he finds is Dameron sitting in the commons, and shuffling the electronic cards, and placing them around, one card on top of each other, three to the side. 

It must be a form of solitaire that Ben hasn’t seen.

“Wanna play?” he asks.

Dameron stops. 

For a moment, Ben is ready for the blow off. But then again, even when those happen, he’s never really ready. Always looking for the next way out, the both of them. But for once, Ben wants to stay, wants to show all his cards.

“Have a seat, let’s see if we can work on your tells,” Dameron says, and scrapes the cards into a pile.

Ben sits across from him, and watches as Dameron slides the cards over to him. 

“Any particular version?” he asks.

“Regular rules is fine,” Dameron replies.

Ben deals out two cards to each of them and watches as Dameron clicks on the game field, the cards jump to life and start going through the pips, up and down and sideways.

“Two,” Dameron says, and Ben slides two over. 

So far he has two flasks. “I take two,” he says, and picks them up. And Idiot and another flask. Okay. The numbers jump around, and there’s no way to tell when they could land on the Idiot’s Array, but he might have a chance… He looks up, and Dameron is staring at him, cards in hand face down.

“That’s your problem, Ben,” he says. “You’re too focused on your cards, and not on your opponent.” 

“My opponent can’t tell me how I can win, my cards can.”

Dameron rolls his eyes. “It’s like you’re not even a smuggler. Look, every time you think you have something, your eyes widen.”

“No they don’t,” Ben scoffs. “They do?”

Dameron nods. “Now look at me. Judging by what you know about me, what kind of hand do you think I have?”

Ben looks. Dameron’s face is a blank slate. He’s staring at Ben intensely, waiting. Waiting for an answer that Ben doesn’t have. “I don’t know,” Ben says after a moment, feeling like his breath is caught. Maybe having Dameron’s attention isn’t what he really needs after all.

“Okay, watch,” Dameron says, and picks up his hand and looks at it. 

He looks back up at Ben, and then to his cards again. Puts his cards down. “Did you see anything?” he asks.

“I’m going to take a chance and say you have a bad hand,” Ben says.

“I call,” and Ben reaches out and clicks the game field off.

Dameron lays his hand face up. Queen, and three sabers, adding up to forty seven. “You Bombed Out,” Ben says.

“And you won,” Dameron says.

Ben doesn’t even look at his cards, just lays them on the table. Dameron raises his eyebrows. “No one’s going to believe this,” he says, and Ben looks down. Idiot’s Array. He did it. 

“I hardly believe it myself,” Ben says. “I won.”

“Well I guess you get to ask me a question,” Dameron says, flatly. 

Ben thinks about lording it over Dameron, maybe holding onto the question until the least appropriate time to ask, about asking about all those run ins before. About how thick that data file is on him.

Before. The history between the two was wrought with heartbreak, Ben’s at least.

He had fallen in love as soon as he saw Dameron, and wanted to take him to bed. But then Dameron wanted to take him to jail. Things got complicated after that. Every time Ben ran into Dameron, and Ben made sure it happened more often than not, Dameron gave him a warning. And Ben always slipped through Dameron’s fingers. 

And the last time. 

“Why are you always doing this?” Dameron hissed at him. Ben was sure his plan would work, and holding Dameron at blaster point wasn’t really part of it, but it was on stun, honest. 

“I like pulling your pigtails, what can I say,” Ben said, and looks behind him before saying, “We really have to stop running into each other like this.”

“If I didn’t know better, you incite them,” Dameron said. He sighs, and then, “I need you to stop. I can’t keep letting you get away with this. You either stop, or you come with me.”

“So that’s it?” Ben asked. “No more games? No more anything ever?”

“You can either have your life, or you can have no life in prison,” Dameron said. “I’m giving you a choice that no jury ever would. You’re wanted on seven systems. Four of those are in the Republic. I’m an Admiral. I can’t keep letting you get away.”

Ben frowned. “Sorry about this,” he shrugged, feeling vicious, feeling betrayed. He shot, and Dameron dropped.

It wasn’t Ben’s finest moment. In fact, he ran right to Cularin afterward and then got shoved into the next galaxy through no fault of his own. So here he was, and in that waiting, this week that’s followed, Ben hasn’t even begun to understand what the reasoning behind it was. 

Dameron has every right to sock him in the jaw. But instead he ignores him for Kylo, and even tries to help win at card games. 

It’s that kind of behavior, the letting him go, the unspoken forgiveness in his actions, that’s what made Ben fall for Dameron. Being told to stop being an asshole felt like a slap in the face, a blast to the chest. Because he wanted to be forgiven one more time. But even Admiral Dameron had his limits. And running errands for the First Order was it.

So if there was one question that Ben wanted to ask, this had to be it: “Why do you keep letting me go?”

Dameron blinks. Then tilts his head like he doesn’t quite understand the question. Like he doens’t speak basic. “You know the answer to that,” he says slowly.

Ben shakes his head. “I wish I could say that, but I have no idea why you would. You have every reason to keep me, but you keep letting me go.”

Dameron rolls his eyes and then his head back, like the force of his exasperation has effected him more than mentally.

“I don’t believe this,” Dameron mutters. He runs a hand over his face, and looks at Ben, his hand stopped over his mouth. “You’re a moron,” he says after a minute.

“Hey!” Ben says. Uncalled for.

“I keep letting you go because I like you.”

Ben’s heart slams up in his chest and starts hammering, humming like a hydrospanner.

“For whatever stupid reason, I like you, and I thought the feeling was mutual, if juvenile, but apparently I was wrong, because you are truly that clueless.” Dameron gets up, and starts to walk out of the commons, storming off to the quarters.

“Wait, Dameron.” Ben gets up, but is stopped by the table, and he has to crab shuffle around the round table and follows him to the rooms. Dameron is already shutting the doors closed, but Ben shoves an arm between the doors, and they hiss back open, safety procedures kicking in. 

“Stop,” Dameron says, his mouth a thin line. 

“I do,” Ben says.

Dameron’s face squeezes in confusion. “What?” he asks. “No, whatever it is, I’m done for today, leave.” He passes his hand over the door controls, and the doors move to shut again, and Dameron quickly shoves him out of the way. Ben sticks his foot in the doorway.

“I like you, I do. I mean,” Ben bites his lip. “I do like you. Like you have no idea.” 

Dameron looks at him for a bit and sighs. “You’re not lying?” he asks.

“Look if you had any idea, you wouldn’t even ask. You shouldn’t have to ask. You shouldn’t have to give ultimatums about my lifestyle because I’m an idiot.” Ben looks down at his boots. “You shouldn’t even let me go, but you do.”

“I don’t want to,” Dameron says. “I want to be able to keep you and still be who I am, but it just isn’t like that. The First Order is going to make a move soon, because they and the Republic are too at odds to be in one galaxy together. And I have to stop that. That’s just a part of who I am.”

“I know. I don’t want you to be any different. And I thought I couldn’t change who I am, because I’m so distinct, but if there’s one thing this trip has taught me, it’s that that’s not true. There could be more other mes out there, and I’m just one of them, and I’m really glad you like this one.”

Dameron looks at him askance. “Are you saying you’ll stop being the First Order’s errand boy?”

“I’m saying I’m going to start the Resistance. Obviously it’s what mom would have done. But that means I’m still lawless. If you found me, you’d have to arrest me.”

“The Republic still stands, and it will back the Resistance.” Dameron leans in and pecks Ben’s cheek quickly. 

Ben tries to cover his quick inhalation. “What else will the Republic back?”

Dameron rolls his eyes and surges up, pulls Ben down and their mouths clash, teeth clacking. Dameron tugs at Ben’s vest, and Ben holds onto Dameron’s wrists, pulling back to soften the kiss. Dameron follows suit, gently sucking at Ben’s lip, running his tongue over Ben’s teeth, pulling in and in and in.

Ben follows because that’s all he can do. He soaks up everything, feeling the red star after being in cold space for so long. He rubs his hands down Dameron’s arms, he guides his hands up around shoulders to Dameron’s neck. He shivers and moans, and can’t breathe but doesn’t want this to end, so he says goodbye to his breath.

They come apart, and Ben gasps and sighs, “Dameron.” Like he’s in one of those holos Chewie would watch.

Dameron chuckles. “I think you can call me Poe, now.”

 

So that’s it. The Eye needs to be used to take down Snoke, and the best way to get to Snoke is through Kylo. Poe struggled to find another way. What could he do, what could he say, but there was nothing. Kylo was at stake, just when Poe got him back.

Kylo looks like he’s headed to the gallows at this news. Luke and Leia don’t look too happy about it either, and that’s only a little better. It makes Poe feel a little better about this whole affair, anyway. 

He waits and waits, and in the meantime goes to his quarters to change and use the fresher, maybe actually sleep for once, and standing outside his door is Kylo, a better fitting jumpsuit on. He’s also talking to BeeBee Ate. 

“No, I haven’t seen him either,” Kylo is saying politely. 

Poe feels like his mind is broken. Not a year ago, this man was looking for this droid, and would have done almost done anything to get it out of Poe. And now they’re together, and Poe doesn’t know how to feel. He knows that Kylo is not Kylo Ren by any means. But for some reason he wants to step between them.

Poe steadies himself. Kylo isn’t looking for information, and they had just had a conversation about not wanting to go back to the First Order, and Poe can’t handle himself?

BeeBee chirps again. 

“I’m Kylo,” Kylo says. 

BeeBee rolls back, looks up, and around. 

“I’m not bad anymore, I promise. You can ask Poe.”

A questioning beep.

“Yes, we’ve known each other awhile.”

Poe steps up. “It’s okay BeeBee.” He kneels down. “It’s a long story, but Kylo’s my buddy, okay?”

BeeBee looks from Poe up to Kylo and back again. A sharp beep, and BeeBee gently bumps into Poe before rolling to Kylo and giving a happy chirrup. BeeBee opens the doors and glides in.

“Thank you,” Kylo says graciously. 

“Hey babe,” Poe says, stepping up to buss a kiss on Kylo’s cheek. “Sorry about BeeBee.” 

“I’ll win them over,” Kylo says, a soft smile, and he probably doesn’t mean that really, but Poe is touched, nonetheless.

Poe grins, and follows BeeBee in. “Your mom kick you out?” he asks, heading to the kitchenette. He could use some tea.

“Of course not, I distracted her with Luke and came over here as soon as I could. I have a hard time being near her…” He fades off.

Since Han? Poe wants to ask. He doesn’t. It’s too soon. It might always be too soon. It might always be too soon. 

“We both have a lot of guilt and anger,” Kylo shrugs. “Ben’s more like Han, I definitely take after her.”

“You’re not actually brothers you know,’ Poe says. “Did you want something to drink? All I have is caf, tea, and water, I’m afraid.” 

“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” Kylo says. 

Poe sets the kettle to boil, and the cups with bags in them. There’s something so comforting and weirdly ancient about a cup of tea. It might be that Poe’s dad always made it in times of trouble. Poe can remember Kes setting tea up whenever his heart was broken.

“So you’re here for a visit, or for a hiding place?” Poe asks. He cocks his head to the side to study Kylo. 

“Both, to be honest.” Kylo watches as BeeBee rolls through and chirrups at the both of them in greeting before rolling back to the bedroom. Kylo looks like he wants to ask, but refrains. “Is that okay?”

Poe shrugs. “I’m not your parent.”

“Kriff, I hope not, or else this will get awkward,” Kylo says, accepting the cup of tea Poe offers.

“Come on,” Poe says, rolling his eyes. He gestures to the bedroom. “No funny business though, mister. I’ve got an early start tomorrow and haven’t gotten a full nights sleep in a while.”

“I’ll be on my best behavior,” Kylo says dryly. Poe wishes he could believe him. Although, it might be Poe making the initiation here. But he really is tired. 

Poe sits on the bed and pats for Kylo to sit next to him. “I’ll let that slide for now,” he says, and Kylo takes a seat, the bed dipping underneath his weight. 

Poe takes a sip of his too hot tea and then sets it on the floor next to the head of the bed. He pulls his legs underneath him. “I take it you still aren’t sure about this.”

Kylo stares into the tea cupped in his hands. He still hasn’t sipped any of it. “What else can we do?”

Poe stares at his knees. He reaches out and lays a hand on Kylo, rubbing his back. “I’ll still be here, regardless.”

Kylo slides a glance at him, unsure. Poe has a feeling he’s going to be doing a lot of comforting in this relationship. “Here, lie down,” Poe says, taking Kylo’s tea and setting it next to his own. Two hot cups steaming away, one with a little less liquid than the other.

Kylo does as instructed, and lies down on the mattress, sighing as his body hits the bed. Poe tucks Kylo’s knees up so he can crawl over them, and curls up behind Kylo, wrapping an arm around his waist, pinning his other arm between them. “Go to sleep,” he says, letting his body relax. 

Kylo hums, the vibrations hitting Poe through his chest, and leans towards the bed, bringing Poe with him.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm taking a break from Set Course, but in the meantime, here's this fic. 
> 
> Thanks for taking the time to read this! You are lovely.


End file.
